For the better part of the last two decades, those of us who grew up living, breathing and bleeding organized BMX racing, have discussed the lack of interest in the sport we all loved as kids. These discussions have ranged from simple to complex to conspiracy theories. Now, in the aftermath of a handful of old school folks watching at Phoenix for the first time in a dozen or more years, the armchair quarterbacking has taken on a life of its own. We now have the eldest son of the man that founded the NBL, claiming that the modern clipless pedal design is somehow a root cause in the decline of membership of the two main sanctioning bodies.
Right now, in the spring of 2007, as the world watches the formation of the representatives that will go for the gold as our "little" sport hits prime-time Olympics for Beijing 2008, there is not ONE Major US City that has a BMX track within their city limits.
You can be a staunch conservative, a bleeding heart liberal, or a fence sitting tweener, but you must admit, the problems run far deeper than a steep jump or a clipless pedal.
It all boils down to Choices and Options........................
WHERE TO RACE (a choice of landowners):
Take a look at the West Coast of the US in particular. In the past 20-25 years, the land value in many metropolitan areas has increased up to 1000%, yes, I said 1000%. A look through some of the favored track sites (of the 1970s) in the Southern California area show us that landowners have capitalized on the urban sprawl and many of those early tracks are now multimillion dollar housing tracts. In Oregon, one of the oldest tracks from the 1970s is a business complex just south of Nike's World Headquarters. Another is a major Freeway interchange, and yet another was leveled in the early 1980s to make way for a soccer field expansion.
The track that regularly hosted the Lumberjack Nationals in the 1980s, Riverside Park BMX in Clackamas, Oregon (just south of Portland) floundered in the late 1980s due to a drop in ridership as most of the original riders headed for college and life and the competition level dropped significantly. A political p i s s i n g match (which was really just a misunderstanding) with the ABA took away all future nationals. After a poorly designed rebuild in the early 1990s, the track closed for good in 1996 when a non-racer sued the landowner when he was injured on a weekday. That park (which is owned by the community water works) will never reopen as a BMX facility. One BMX related lawsuit was too much to ever take a chance again.
In the suburbs of Portland right now, it would cost $400,000 per acre to secure a site to build a track on. Figure five acres minimum at $2,000,000 base acquisition costs before you ever fire up your loader to turn a yard of soil. I use Portland as an example because it is still less expensive than Seattle or Los Angeles. Let's face it, if a landowner can build a business park or a residential tract and turn that $2,000,000 into $20,000,000..... odds are..... they will.
WHO WOULD RACE (Little Johnny's Options):
OZ summed it up pretty well a couple years ago when he discussed the game system expansion and the direct correlation to the decrease in membership numbers of BMXA subscribers and BMX enthusiasts in general. Little Johnny's parents now shell out $600 on the new PS-3 and then a few hundred more in games just to give Little Johnny more options. Little Johnny's parents have also been told by Matt Lauer and crew that it is bad to let Little Johnny try and fail. Instead, these parents are told to insulate Little Johnny from failure as long as they possibly can. Instill that entitlement attitude into Little Johnny as much as possible. So, they are much more likely to enroll Little Johnny into "Everybody Wins" scoreless soccer than to let him try anything that has a clear finish line with a clear winner. Have any of you guys ever wondered why large metro areas have no problem shelling out $1,500,000 or more on a skatepark project in a city park? No finish lines there folks.
Little Johnny has far more options than any of us ever had. Little Johnny has also been conditioned to take the path of least resistance whenever there is a choice. Given a choice, Little Johnny has been picking Twinkies and Nintendo for quite some time now.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY (Little Billy's parents):
Little Billy races right now. He has no idea that his folks smoke pot and deal drugs right there in the parking lot of the local track. If Little Billy has seen this, it is all he knows. He has no idea that this kind of illegal activity harms everyone around. Little Billy's parents are clueless. They think it is nobody's business but theirs if they continue to use and deal illegal drugs right there in front of other kids and parents.
Little Billy's folks also have no idea that their actions have greatly contributed to the participation decline of countless decent families that tried and enjoyed BMX racing on a local, regional and even national level. Many of those families that are no longer exposing their kids to this type of crap were second generation racers that thought it would be fun to have their children learn valuable life lessons (as they had in the 1970s and 1980s) from BMX racing.
When sanctioning bodies turn their backs on this type of behavior, the end result is four moto race days at locals. You run a few more seasons of four moto race days at locals and the national participation base will dry right up.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT? (Your choices):
I am actually pretty influential here in this city. In addition to my family owning millions in real estate that I could easily build a track on, it wouldn't take me too long to sell the whole Olympic prelude BMX track in a public park idea to my city council. The whole stumbling block with that is, until all of Little Billy's family members are out of this sport, I will not lift a finger to promote something that would embarrass me (on city land) or force me to put up with that behavior (on family owned land).
I could keep writing for hours but the result is still the same...........................
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIPLESS PEDALS