EmTek Racing News - 2004

23/02/2004 - National Factory Riders at Regional Races

EmTek Racing received an interesting email from a visitor and has published such.

"Having been around Regional races over the past few years and listened, with interest to the various comments made in the pits by the riders, I feel it now necessary to place my comments on record.

National Factory Riders at Regional Races

It would appear that many National Riders race with the regional guys at any given opportunity. This, in itself is great for regional racing.

It exposes the regional "up and coming" riders to a new level of experience and expertise. It further allows the national rider to set-up his bike and compare his lap times to the other riders.

All in all a good thing.

The negative aspect of this is obviously quite clear.

• The national rider is riding, by its very nature, a better prepared motorcyle with all the trick bits that are available. There is no comparison to a regional bike in many cases.

• The national rider is sponsored by way of pay and obviously tyres and back-up. Very few regional riders can compete on this level.

• The Factory rider should also be careful as they are so obviously not used to such slow riders and the slow riders do not act in the same manner as the better riders at national level. This can cause accidents and injure a contracted rider to the extent that he may not be able to fulfil his obligations to race the next National meeting.

• The regional rider (more especially the poorer regional rider) who make up the backbone of the sport at regional level, rides in order to score (sometimes) a single point in a year. He, due to backup, cost restrictions, experience and expertise can rarely compete with some of the more advantaged regional riders, let alone the national guys.

The great pity in all of the above is that the National rider (who should, in essence, only be there to test) is quite happy to take points away (in a championship that they do not actually contest) from the poorer relation, the Regional Rider.

I would suggest that we actively encourage the National guys to race the Regionals (as they bring so much good to the race), however, as they should not actively compete at that level, they should be excluded from the results.

I would appreciate your comments in this regard."

Under alias    -     R.U.R.eady

This page was last updated on 06-06-2008.