New Post to "All Stunters Please Read"....

[PETe P]

eaze i don't know about 1 sanctioning body that puts on comps. there would still be comps, maybe more. if you look at snowboarding and skating and bmx, vans has comps, redbull, moutain dew....etc. i know what you mean but i don't think it would be so cut-up, i would hope not but who knows.

This sport does need orginization, badly but it's really hard, it's hard enough to tell who a "pro" is and who a "am". some of the "ams" kill it harder than pro's because there hungry and want to get there name out there. Some day it might go truly mainstream, i'll still ride ,some will lose interest some will just not bother anymore. you will however see that some of the cage companies will go away, due to the bandwagon effect. for some of them(riders) it won't be cool to be a stunter anymore. then in the blink of an eye pop culture will be done with you, everyone saw it with skateboarding, then in a few years it will come back again.

[excessa]

Originally Posted by Dr.Spot

eaze i don't know about 1 sanctioning body that puts on comps. there would still be comps, maybe more. if you look at snowboarding and skating and bmx, vans has comps, redbull, moutain dew....etc. i know what you mean but i don't think it would be so cut-up, i would hope not but who knows.

This sport does need orginization, badly but it's really hard, it's hard enough to tell who a "pro" is and who a "am". some of the "ams" kill it harder than pro's because there hungry and want to get there name out there. Some day it might go truly mainstream, i'll still ride ,some will lose interest some will just not bother anymore. you will however see that some of the cage companies will go away, due to the bandwagon effect. for some of them(riders) it won't be cool to be a stunter anymore. then in the blink of an eye pop culture will be done with you, everyone saw it with skateboarding, then in a few years it will come back again.

That gets to me too. It *is* hard to get everyone going in a similar direction, and hard to even know which direction to go in, and nobody really helps with that confusion, despite there being people in similar sports who have been there from seed to tree.

I think that's the natural course for any sport that starts out as more of an outsider. You slowly gain public interest, which turns into acceptance, and then things change.

When I first started riding sportbikes in 1988, skaters were not feeling the love. Everywhere the guys went to skate, they got chased off. Over the years skateparks became more common, and skaters began to receive some recognition. Then comes gravity games/x games and the public boner for all things 'extreme'.

One thing to expect is, stuntings' moment in the sun may not last. A lot of sports attract a fanatical following, lots of attention and then slowly people lose interest. There is no known formula for keeping their interest, no matter how *interesting* you are. The public is fickle.

I suspect some sports longevity has a lot to do with the viewer being involved. Like baseball, basketball, soccer, golf...the major fan base is probably participating in the sport on their own, so they identify with their sports "heroes", which keeps people tuned in because they feel connected. But it's just a theory and it has some holes. I can't explain NASCAR.

[excessa]

Originally Posted by eazenutz33

I think HRC, Excessa, Kane, and AZ all have valueable ponts and somewhere in the mix is where you'll find the right answer!

You can't really cmpare FMX to sportbike stunting........FMX ORIGNATED in the dirt, they practice in the dirt, and the perform in the dirt for comps and shows.

Our "sport", if you wanna call it that, originated(at least in the US) in the streets as an illegal activity(starboyz, lvx, streetfighterz, drew stones first vids), and has grown as a result of videos of people performing these illegal activities, and from people who have seen them done and want to be able to do that(people will emulate what they've seen the same way they've seen it, so they see street riding, they street ride!)). Stunters have been slowing tricks down and moving to the lot, and in turn, the fans who have seen you at the lot....they have gotten cages and bars and try to start in the lot and only move to the streets when/if you say its in or cool.They're the new breed of stunters, never learned a wheelie on the highway until they could ride idle or cut circles. But for the public, imagine selling videos of nothing but lot footage, the lot can get real boring, real quick for me, imagine someone who hasn't been around the sport and they see everyone going 5mph in a circle......their favorite tricks are gonna be coasters and endoes.....at least you get some speed up there!

You wanna make a good living off this "sport"?(not talking about enough to "get by" I'm talking retire at 40 money when your "prime" is about up like the "real" sports out there) , you're gonna have to make a decision. If people are gonna want to have bigtime sponsors, with big (comparatively) contracts they are going to have to give up riding on the street all together! Or they are gonna have to try and get their bread and butter from the videos they make while doing this still illegal, and always will be, activity!

/\ in that we CAN compare streetbike racing to stunt riding. If Valentino Rossi or Nicky Hayden were caught speeding excessively, or road racing on open streets you better bet they instantly become a liability rick for their sponsors. Cause Joe Squid is gonna see how Nicky Hayden was "arrested for riding at speeds above 160mph and also ticketed for racing on public streets" whats Joe Squid gonna think........"if I wanna be that good and make money on a motorcycle, I'll race on the streets and go really fast on the street too"

It doesn't work that way for racers, if you wanna race, you gotta go and get a track liscense, you have to have bodywork made to contain so much oil, your bolts have to be wired to the bike, you have to have a steering stabilizer,......all these things you must have.....and only a few that you CAN change to remain in certain classes...like today I discovered you CANNOT run aftermarket rotors on your bike if you want to race in the SuperStock racing class.....you can change pads, and lines....thats it!

Same thing here, we see people who go to comps and compete as "professional stunt riders", yet they go out on the street and stunt up the street.....well, now you're a professional criminal (just like me and 99% of the people on here who have been heavily ticketed and arrested on several occasions.)

I guarantee you if a major corporation decides to sponsor a sportbike freestylists it WILL have in the contract how you would be expected to NOT RIDE on public streets, let alone stunt on them.

And Kane is right, it won't say a word about YOU being responsible for Joe Squid wrecking his bike or killing himself on it,......they've already covered that by saying you are not to be on the streets, cause once you do.....sponsorship and their affialiation with you is GONE!

Here's what it would take for this sport to really be taken seriously........tell me if you think its worth it?.........
1)NO MORE STREETRIDING....no wheelies on the street, no street videos, can't even appear on the street in a street video!
2)organize the sport.....no more starboyz comp, no stuntwars, no stuntlife comp.....would have to have a U.S. wide community like A.M.A. with a point type system and events around the country spread out over dates where individual prizes can be won, then an overall "cup" or something for being the top stunter in the nation
3)Rules, Guidleine, Classes.
-600's and 750's/1000's split in classes with seperate comps, and seperate cups and prize values
-what mods are ok, and whats "cheating"...NOS?... dirtbike bars?....flipped, turned, and swapped clip-ons?....flat bar vs. round bar vs. no bar......
-rules for tricks.....touching feet on the ground cost points?.....sliders/cage/pegs touch ground cost points?.......do you have to have a routine set out before hand and do you lose poits for not doing each trick in your routine?

Would it be worth it really.......I would never buy a stunt vid again! And would prolly be seen as the criminal side of the sport!

Excellent points. There's some wiggle room though. Some sports are more heavily controlled than others, and if you look it's usually the biggest ones, the moneymakers.

You're absolutely right about the street stunting. There'd probably be contract language prohibiting that at some point, though I doubt they could take street riding away from anyone. It's a legal activity.

With you guys, no group is likely to know better than the stunters themselves what conditions are necessary to level the field, and any judging body created to set the rules in place would likely be a mix of sponsors and stunters arguing over what is necessary.

The sponsors know the public likes a good wreck, but at the same time, they don't want you to die doing what you do, so their hand is going to be on their wallet the entire time. But if you look at FMX and the sick risks they take, you can get a good idea of how far you'd be allowed to go in a competition, when stunting finally reaches it's maximum potential audience.

By that time the pros will have track access to practice. Vale and Nicky didn't get that fast by riding slow on the streets, they get to ride track, a lot. The sponsors you want have tracks you can play on.

[Kaneone]

I like wheelies...


-kane

[excessa]

Me too. Sroppies. Near wrecks where you just barely manage to pull it off. Wrecks where no one gets hurt...That kind of stuff. Excitement with a chance of death.

[eazenutz33]

Originally Posted by Dr.Spot

eaze i don't know about 1 sanctioning body that puts on comps..

I agree with you....but when you look at road racing....AMA is the big dog for american racers......but there are smaller "circuits" that run with people hoping to get to AMA races.

Baseball has its minor leagues..........FootBall has its Canadian league and Arena league.........Soccer has gay porn (j/k)

I personally don't look forward to this "sport" becoming main stream and a large portion of the country knowing peoples names and lives......I like Street action, I like rocking street, and I like videos that have alot of street footage in them......the vids(my favorite part) would be dead without street in them!

When it comes to shows and comps, its what people want to see, and they pay to see it! Noone could front a stunt comp. year after year and offer thousands of dollars in purses for events if there wasn't enough money to cover the purses and bring profits.

[zxcraig]

yo az whene is the c&i 5 release party?

[Brand New]

Another point is that they have sports like skateboarding in the x-games with major companies sponsoring them. Yet at the same time you see plenty of videos and magazines featuring the same skateboarders street skating in no skateboarding zones and even getting arrested during the video. While skateboarding is a long developed sport that has become socially excepted, I don't see why this sport can't be accepted in the same way...

[Ryan S]

the riders on this site know who the "pros" are.....it's the guys out there DOING it......getting the "sport" to the public, making the sacrifices......not some guy that spends a couple hours a night in a parking lot learning handbrake shit for 6 months........does that make sense??

[adamsf]

okay, this argument can go on forever....your list of rules would be great for the actual guys who abide by them... but obviously, the 98% of the sportbike riding community would not... that's the LIABILITY im talking about from a corporate perspective.... smaller companies like what kane metioned (as he is fortunate enough to be a billionaire off all of his contracts, edorsments, etc... )

on top of all this stuff, mainstream folks don't under the riding... the visual appeal for it (circles, slow technical stuff) DOES NOT HAVE THE "WOW" appeal that doing back flips 50ft in the air does, doing 200 mph around a track, going 400 mph in 3 seconds....its going to be a challenge...

[eazenutz33]

Originally Posted by adamsf

okay, this argument can go on forever....your list of rules would be great for the actual guys who abide by them... but obviously, the 98% of the sportbike riding community would not... that's the LIABILITY im talking about from a corporate perspective.... ...

seriously doubt I'll be following those rules in Sept.:YEAH Jackson is having his ride(and hopefully be able to make it to yours!

2 questions for ya AZ:

1)When can I get my copy of C&I5(gotta see the cartoon in it ....oh yeah, and the streets biatch)

2)Whats scheduled so far for the annual "run from STLPD" ride ? Got my own bike this time(maybe bikeS by then) so its time to take to your STL highways!:YEAH

[MarcoL.]

Originally Posted by adamsf

I just had to start a new thread that’s a contuation of "All stunters read and reply"…
we've debated over this for 7 years back here in St.louis…..
here's my take on it…

You can stop riding streets all together, but riding streets isn't the problem.. it’s the fans and people we influence…that’s the liability…..the problem is this….say a group of 16 year old kids come to watch a stunt show and decide, "man that’s awesome, I want to learn that"…well what are their options?

I would venture to say, in most cases, they'll go out and buy a bike, start riding… guess what, where do they practice..?news flash, but 95% of the public doesn't have access to dragstrips so that leaves only one place for aspiring riders to ride...its not like motorcross where kids watch these guys race and flip, then go buy dirtbikes than practice on dirt in the woods…. the liability of the fans is the biggest concern from a sponsorship perspective….kids riding dirt tracks in the woods are no where close to the liability that kids growing up learning to ride streetbikes are….

our laws are NOT suited to accept people's learning curves on streetbikes… kids riding in the woods and on farms are harmless to others and the public, and from a sponsors view point, the liability is minimal….

bottom line is this, its going to be a major challenge for our sport and potential sponsors on how to approach it from a high level…you'll never eliminate "streetriding"… you'll have guys riding down highways and streets doing wheelies to the end of time which whenever something bad happens, the fingers will point right at the SPORT…

by the way, that post to me looked more like a marketing ploy for the video than a sincere post…..just my two cents...

by the way, watch for C and I 5…. (retarded street footage) :YEAH :YEAH
az

yep, rockin´ the streets is a fine way to go, but i prefer never rocking without brain, and i guess everyone who hit the streets already a few times, knows what i´m talkin about.:YEAH

[snapper1978]

Originally Posted by Brand New

Another point is that they have sports like skateboarding in the x-games with major companies sponsoring them. Yet at the same time you see plenty of videos and magazines featuring the same skateboarders street skating in no skateboarding zones and even getting arrested during the video. While skateboarding is a long developed sport that has become socially excepted, I don't see why this sport can't be accepted in the same way...

there is noway in hell you can compare pushin a skateboard 2 miles an hour and maybe falling breakin a arm and your skateboard dentin a car to doing a wheelie at 100mph where if you fall you either skin yourself,die, serious injury or the bike could do the same to whatever it hits.i think the sport will never fully be accepted for the simple fact of the real stunters love the streets, that is where they learned.but also i dont think the sport and grow without the streets.plus it is fun doing a superman past the popo going 130 and actually gettin away wit it.:YEAH

[excessa]

Originally Posted by Brand New

Another point is that they have sports like skateboarding in the x-games with major companies sponsoring them. Yet at the same time you see plenty of videos and magazines featuring the same skateboarders street skating in no skateboarding zones and even getting arrested during the video. While skateboarding is a long developed sport that has become socially excepted, I don't see why this sport can't be accepted in the same way...

That's a good point, the rebel atmosphere is worth more than it was too. My hands will be tied by outdated notions far longer than yours will, but I guess we all decide how much bs we're willing to put up with to do what we love.

ETA when it comes to public exposure ther ehave to be *some* limits, but they may not be as bad as I can see them being, just because I hear all the focus group "chicken little" crap and it gets to be prett restrictive sounding. The end reslut is often more palatable than what the suits demand or imagine it should be.

Long as you all are willing to speak for yourselves, you'll have a strng hand in what the eventual tolerances become.