Deadlines!
Published: 10th April 2008
Author: Sean Lawless
Don’t you just love them? Once upon a time the night before DBR went to press was usually spent sinking mind-altering tequila-based cocktails in a rough-arse dive in the centre of town, surrounded by the kind of clientele a three-hour happy hour tends to attract.
Of course, back in the day the mag ran fewer pages so we could normally find the time to indulge in such traditional hobbies. Sadly, those days are gone and deadline weeks now tend to be spent sweating over a hot keyboard until late into the night and our fuel of choice is more likely to be Red Bull than Jose Cuervo’s finest. Better for our livers but worse for the soul…
What, you may well ask, is my point here? Well, I guess I’m trying to say we’ve grown up a bit – more through necessity than choice but, nevertheless, like a slice of vintage cheddar we’ve matured. It happens to us all (well most of us) eventually – even the likes of Billy MacKenzie, the one-time enfant terrible of British MX. There was a time that Billy was a bit of a loose cannon – on and off the track – and he admits as much in our interview with him this month. The word he uses is ‘gobsh*te’ and, to be fair, some of Billy’s earlier interviews were every bit as colourful as his riding but you only have to speak to him now or watch the way he goes about his trade to realise that he’s a new, improved version. In the British he’s showing speed and control but the real test comes at Valkenswaard for the first GP where the pace will be moved up a notch or two…
While I’m on the subject of the opening GP of the season, sod’s law dictates that it falls in the no-man’s land between our caffeine-addled deadline and our on-sale date, hence the reason why there’s no report on it in this month’s mag…
Okay, moving swiftly back to the subject of precocious young talent. In his Radio America column this month Steve Matthes highlights the influx of seriously fast, virtually full-formed, teenagers into the pro ranks in the States and the can of worms this opens up. The bottom line is that to be trained by a pro, like a pro, while being homeschooled is great for those who do make it to the big time but what about all the rest - the vast majority - who don’t? Washed up at 20 with a substandard education is not a prospect to look forward to…
What Steve doesn’t touch upon is the effects on young bodies of pounding out 40-minute motos, especially in light of the ACU’s stance of not allowing under 16s to race enduros because they’re concerned about the physical impact this discipline can have on kids who are still growing. And then there’s the kind of parenting that’s best characterised by the classic ‘schoolboy dad’ syndrome. Go to any youth event in the country and there’s a chance you’ll see a dad – or mum for that matter – leaning over the chestnut paling yelling at junior to go faster with the result that the poor little nipper ends up in a heap having decided it’s better to ride beyond their limits than endure a post-race rollicking and a silent van ride home…
The whole subject of children and sport is a moral minefield and pushy parenting certainly isn’t just confined to motocross. Schoolboy football’s every bit as bad and I once saw the minutes from a youth karting disciplinary hearing dealing with one outraged dad who was so, shall we say, ‘upset’ by the performance of his son’s engine that he threw it through his tuner’s caravan window!
I’ve got a daughter who’s just coming up to first bike age and if she wants one I’ll get her one. But I’m not about to lose sight of the fact that she’s much more likely to make a living from writing about two-wheeled sport than competing in it so her education comes first. It’s all a matter of getting your priorities right…