The following letter was sent to the AMA in November of 2007 and is still as relevant today as it was them.
Dear Rob Dingman and the AMA
I have extremely high hopes for the AMA with you at the helm. Although I must admit to being skeptical of any real change happening. The AMA has a long history of not doing what is best for the sport. I sincerely hope that this changes under your guidance.
My comments and suggestions are about Motocross racing. They are made as a fan, racer and AMA member who cares about the sport as a whole.
First and foremost the AMA has a serious image problem. Unfortunately this has been brought about by many questionable decisions and bad calls on the part of the AMA. In fact at times it seemed as though the AMA hated Motocross and was doing everything possible to destroy it. That is not a very positive light to be seen in.
Consistency of Rules - This seems to be the biggest problem overall. It seems there are multiple sets of rules and they are applied differently depending on the influence of the party affected by the rule infraction.
Many pro racer friends complained about transponders not working when qualifying for National events. This is horrible. Whether this is a mechanical issue or outright cheating on the part of the AMA officials at the track is not known. But I'm sure it would not happen to any of the superstars and if it did the AMA would issue a new transponder and allow them an additional qualifying session. The officials ignored the "working class" racers paying their own way.
Fuel Rule - This one is a killer for the AMA. The few teams that had been "caught" by this rule were in no way cheating. There was a questionable amount of "extra" lead found in their fuel. But the AMA chose to stand behind their decision and penalized racers. A bad ruling for an insignificant amount of lead but at least in the beginning the penalties were consistent.
But then RC was found to have the same "cheating" fuel. And yet the AMA allowed that decision to be overturned. As far as I'm concerned that was a slap in the face to every rider that received a penalty in the past. And to every fan of Professional Motocross. James Stewart is the rightful owner of that title no matter what the AMA records currently show.
Noise - For years the AMA's slogan was less sound equals more ground. What the hell happened? The new four-stroke race bikes are louder than anything short of a jet fuel dragster and riding areas are being closed down at an alarming rate! I have stopped attending Pro-Motocross events because it's not fun when the sound from the track is just a loud booming roar. You can't talk to the person next to you and you can not hear the announcer. The sound carries for miles and it doesn't matter if bikes are right in front of you or not, they are LOUD!
I know that the AMA has a sound rule, but it MUST be updated to keep the sound of these machines under control. With urban sprawl at an all time high, we can not afford to anger our neighbors. Please pass strict rules about the noise before we lose more riding areas and racetracks.
Displacement Rule - The displacement difference between Two Strokes and Four Stokes borders on criminal! The Four Strokes have increased the cost of racing and will result in the working man being phased out of racing. These people are the backbone of all motocross racing at the amateur level. Something must be done to turn this into a fair rule.
How can the AMA allow the elimination of 125cc two-strokes? Our children must go from racing 85cc mini racers to 250cc four strokes? This is a recipe for injuries and lawsuits. There needs to be a logical progression for our young racers to move up without having to both switch from a two stroke to a four stroke and a displacement increase of almost three times. Please make a rule that will allow our children to move up incrementally.
My suggestion here is to follow the lead of New Zealand. They have a 125cc two stroke class, a 250c class for both two stroke and four stroke bikes and an Open class consisting of all open bikes.
The displacement issue needs to be applied to both amateur and professional levels of motocross. As a suggestion the 125cc class could even be a class that does not allow factory sponsored racers.
In addition this would help with the nonsensical class names. The only reason the name change was required in the first place was because of the displacement difference. To the casual fan the current "Lites" and "Motocross" names do not make sense.
Bring back works bikes - The factory race bikes, while based on production bikes are light years better than what you can buy at your local dealer. Plus the rules surrounding this rule make it impossible for a small manufacturing company to develop a new machine over the course of a few years. By allowing full on works bikes manufacturers would have time to test new technologies before having to rush into production. This should bring the cost of production bikes down for the Amateur Racers.
My belief is that the AMA should be working to make racing viable for years to come. And as easy as possible to understand for new and/or casual fans. This is the way to get Motocross to grow.
Thank you for reading my comments and suggestions.
