I took Henry last weekend to the last round of the South West Wild West series at Decoy which managed to pull in 71 riders, the lowest of that particular series, the highest 112 and averaging at 88. A couple of long standing regulars on the BMX circuit asked me why I thought numbers were relatively low??

First off, as personal preference, over the winter months I like to give Henry a rest from racing. He still rides at least 3 sessions a week and can easily be more, but I think it’s good to have a break from the mental and physical demands of racing, however I do like to pick and choose some winter races to make sure he doesn’t get what I refer to as race rusty. From memory I think he raced on 4 occasions this winter, it would have been a couple more but due to prior arrangements clashing with racing under the roof rounds we didn’t attend any.

I wonder if over the last couple of years it appears that there has been a sudden influx of other winter series races being introduced. It didn’t seem that long ago that you had your core of RUTR and Deep South and that was pretty much it wasn’t it?? This year off the top of my head we had 2 seperate series, totalling 9 races in the SW and Birmingham ran a four race series. Is it just a simple case that there is too much racing to go around and subsequently not enough riders? If people are being let’s say selective in their racing, what influences where you race, locality, weather, track standard, national host, standard of riding, habitual choice. The Birmingham series as example, centrally located, hosting a national attracted an average of 140 whilst the long standing Deep South had an average 202, with one round pulling in 244 which is about 30 riders higher than the average entry to a SW regional last year!!! RUTR never fails to fill its allocation within hours of going live, it’s a good 4 to 4.5 hour drive from anywhere south of M4 corridor, if you want a good practice session it requires a two day commitment plus expense of overnight stay, plus you pay for the practice session but you are in the comfort of being indoors, maybe we all just love stretching ourselves to the max!!!!

On reflection of the last race we attended at Decoy I paid £10 race entry, is this possibly a touch too much for a winter race pulling average 88 riders, does that put people off? More appealing at £7/8 maybe. Would you rather spend your race fees on a series where you are more likely to get more than 4/5 riders in an age group. Practice was still one hour of open track, one hour of gates, there seemed to be a lot of hanging around, with the numbers here relatively low this could easily have halved and racing under way at least an hour earlier, would it be more appealing if the whole event could be over and done by lunchtime? I guess its difficult to judge, a schedule needs to publicised before race day and if you are fortunate enough to be pulling greater numbers then you need the longer practice sessions, catch 22. For us as a family, the normal regional/national circuit takes up a good percentage of weekends in the year, committing to more through the winter is an easy starter for family meltdown. Time is becoming more and more of an invaluable commodity, that’s not to say that a day of racing in off season is a waste of time, but is it valuable time? Likewise back to entry fees, part of those fees go toward end of season trophies, cut the fees and risk lowering the quality of the trophies etc. What has become apparent certainly in our close proximity is that the winter races seem to serve as a good grass routes introduction to racing, giving new up starters a taste of what a regional race series entails, the format of race day, where to go what to do, make them feel more confident to hopefully enter the regional series. Equally as you become a more seasoned racer perhaps to get the adequate level of racing you require you have to gravitate away to where it naturally seems to be.

As ever let us know your thoughts and opinions, smash a like, share, and make sure you subscribe to the blog.

Freepost offer on now up until Midnight Sunday March 1st, remember Mothers day is coming!!