Australasian Dirt Bike — January 2018

http://www.adbmag.com.au JANUARY 2018| 171

If they want to

fix the sport,

they need to do

something good

tracks. But over there they only get 65

riders, whereas in Australia,weare

getting 300 riders.”

The overall championship was

droppedfor 2017 andreplacedwitha

revised EnduroGP class (over 250cc) and

E 2 (under 250cc),but the overall title is

settoreturnin2018,along withE1, E2

andE3.Itmaybetoolate.

“Ithinkthere isgoingtobeabig

shake-up,” says C huc k y, f rom t he Ya r r a

Valley. “A few teams havepulled out and

that meansless riders.IthinktheFIM

needstohaveagoodlookatit.Ithink

manypeoplearehappytojusttakesome

money andkeep riding,but ifthey want

tofixthesport,theyneedtodo

something good.”

ThedeclineofEnduroGPseemsto

mirrorthe fall oftheAustralian

Four-Day Enduro. The2016A4DEin

Vic. was rescheduled and,when it

finallyran,itattractedfew riders. The

2017 one was cancelled altogether. And

the same old reasonskeepcoming up;

too expensive, not enoughpromotion,

sub-par tracks, no atmosphere and too

muchfocus on thepros.

There is a solution and Chucky sums

it up perfectly. “You go to good events

andgoodareas, thepeoplewantto

come,” he says. “People always ask why

Hattahsellsoutin 1 5 minutes.It’s

because it’s an awesome race, an

awesome weekend andyou’re

guaranteedagoodtrackevery year.”

Another good example is Finke. The

hype and atmosphere around Alice

Springs on Queens Birthday weekend

isincredible.Thecommonthread

throughHattahandFinke is notjust

thattheyaredesertraces,butthatthey

attract the punters who want to test

themselvesonachallenging,but

rideablecourse,andalsobeapartofthe

excitingoff-trackaction.

Soitappears thatboththeA4DEand

the EnduroGP could benefit from taking

agood,longlookat events that are

consideredasuccessandworkouthow

they can apply those formulas to their

ownraces.

It’squitesimplereally:good,

entertainingandchallengingevents

attract more riders, more spectators and

more sponsors.Ratherthanfocusingon

money andlookingatthe overallseries,

the promoters need to go back to the

basicsandfocusoneachroundandturn

them into ‘events’ that peoplewantto

attend, is what the boysaresaying.

Maybethat meanshavingfewer

rounds, lowering the entry fee, choosing

SERIES WRAP I ENDUROGP

Phillips went 1-1 in Spain Looks like something from a Michael Bay flick

The turn-out in Germany was massive