2009 ISDE, Portugal, Oct. 12-19th, GO USA!

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This really could be the year we take the World Trophy, ladies and gentlemen.  I'm probably jinxing the effort just by saying that, but the dry and dusty Portugal conditions should really favor our current team selection, even with a couple of "last minute" substitutions. The latest AMA Racing News issue has a write-up (honest to god, if they could make this link any harder to find on the AMA website...) of the WT and JT teams.  Here's the issue:

http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/amaracer/1/3/

Got Thoughts?

How about this interesting fact - Fred Hoess will be competing in his 20th ISDE event. This will tie him with Drew Smith, who just happened to be competing at Allen's Farm MX on a PE250 a couple of weeks ago.  In talking to Drew (who I am not worthy to talk to...), he seemed a little hesitant to say THIS is the year, but he did talk about how much he has wanted to be present the year the USA takes the World Trophy.  He didn't have a travel plan for this year when we spoke...THAT may have been the reason for his hesitation.

MY worries would be centered around the two newest additions to the team - Tim Wiegand and Damon Huffman.  Yes...these are western terrain specialists and Portugal should certainly be a dry and dusty place.  But showing up for your FIRST TIME must be a daunting assignment - I'll bet Paul D., Dwight Rudder, and others can speak to this.  If we have a Super Team Support effort, anything is possible, but gosh it would have been nice if these guys had some previous ISDE experience.

Oh well...

[Larry Perkins]

Thoughts?  

Okay-Most every year we hope this will be the year and yet we always seem to fall short.  Yet every year many of the same riders qualify to represent us.  My thought is our process is flawed.  If you send the same horses to race and continue to get beat you need to breed fresh horses.  If our MXers have become the best in the world why can we not field a team off-road that can do the same?  I think it is because the best we have for the job do not even try to go.  It is many of the same guys on the team each year.  Now don't get me wrong these same guys are far better than I will ever be or have been but they have proven by now that they are not good enough to get the job done.  Better to gamble on fresh faces than go with the same old corps.  Our best hope should be in some of the hot up coming Juniors.  We should also figure out what we need to do to bring better riders to the process of selection and perhaps re-thinking how we select.  

My thoughts on our forever seeking Gold and coming up short.  It seems to always be the same as a Kansas City Chiefs fan-Wait till next year.

Larry P

[firstturn]

Larry,
   Thanks as always for your thoughts and Thank God we live in a Country where we can still voice our opinion.  I have always been on the outside looking in at the selection process of picking our riders.  I know of one instance back in the old days where a Friend was told by AMA he had to ride all the qualifiers to get picked.  He had a business and Family to take care of so he wasn't picked?
  This is a discussion that could go on forever with no two people agreeing on what to do, but I have always liked what Einstien had to say...

Albert Einstein once said that " Insanity is doing the same experiment again and expecting different results"....

Make it a Great Day and thanks to the POG for having this forum.

Ron Carbaugh

[Jeff D]

Drew Smith will be at the Ohio ISDT Reunion this weekend, so maybe we can pump him for more info!  
My two cents on the Six Days is that we need to level the playing field.  We send some very good riders to compete in an event that they do not practice for all year.  The Europeans send some very good riders who have been riding Six Days style events all year.  The World Enduro Championship and all of the European events are for the most part mini-ISDEs.  Same scoring, same rules, same terrain, same speeds, same mindset on race day.  We have guys who are unbeatable in GNCC, hare & hound, national enduro, hare scrambles, Best of the Desert, etc., but the ISDE is a different breed of cat, plus there is no national or industry support for it.  That's why we have great riders take a pass on the Six Days so they can ride here stateside for series championship points here.  Fred Hoess and Jeff Fredette are selling t-shirts to help offset their ISDE expenses.  Guys with 20 and 29 rides under their belts out to be being paid to do it, not paying out of their pocket to ride for the US.  The way we do it is just plain not right.

Jeff DeBell

[Kip Kern]

Is the 6 Days at Mexico next year?  If so, we as a club should go there and work for team USA. Go POG![]

[brian kirby]

The biggest difference between the US teams of the past and the Euro teams is they always get retired GP stars to come out and race the WEC and the ISDE. Guys like Joel Smets and Stephan Everts have ridden for their countries in the past. The US never gets retired MX stars to race the ISDE. Not all MX guys would be a good fit, but I've always thought that guys like Bob Hannah, Kent Howerton, Jeff Stanton, Mike Larocco, John Dowd, Kevin Windham and any other MX guy known for being good in mud/nasty conditions would be good fits. We dont get them because there is no money in it, not only is there no money to be made, but you have to pay your own way. We will never win until we start at least getting enough industry/manufacturer support that riders can maybe not make money, but at least not have to come out of pocket to go.

Brian

'72 Berkshire

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Well...great discussion!  And hello to Ron C - VERY nice to hear your voice around these parts.

I do think it's interesting, though maybe not necessarily democratic, that the ISDE effort is by annointment or appointment, whatever you want to call it. That must really be a product of the times, with four Very Good racing series taking place stateside - GNCC, OMA, WORCS, and the National Enduro Series. Heck, I'm not even including the AMA's national hare scramble series or the National Hare&Hound - the latter of which has produced Destry Abbott, who is holding his own just find on the Trophy Team, and will absolutely KILL if the Mexican ISDE is held in northern or Baja environments BTW.  

As someone pointed out, none of these emulate the ISDE or WEC in terms of format, and that must hurt us somewhat in terms of our preps/familiarity with how to do this. The National Enduro Series probably should have gone in the direction of WEC a long time ago, but hasn't it moved somewhat in that direction?  

But then someone like Stephan Evert comes along - having NEVER been to an ISDE - and wins it (someone Fact-Check me if I'm wrong on this).  Go Figure, huh?  Which lends some credence to the "Just Bring In the Motocrossers".  Well..I think we can say that in Ricky Dietrich and Damon Huffman, we have the MX skill set covered.  Ricky is amazing because MX really isn't where he came from, and yet he shows up for the National Series as a sub, and he did AMAZING.  His 2nd overall last year was no fluke.  He is our Merriman, our Knight, our Edmondson, etc., etc.  Damon's record (two 125 supercross championships) speaks for itself.  From a coversation I had with Caselli last year at Unadilla, I know that he was -at that time- thinking that Mike Brown would also be a very good fit on the Trophy Team.  Mike is doing incredibly well competing in WORCS.  BTW - great to see Kurt's strong end of season finishes.  REALLY great. He is just a tick behind Ricky in the scheme of things and is also quite capable of a Top 5 overall.  If Ricky and Kurt can "land" Top 10 overalls and the other guys just hold their own, the WT is ours without even a fight.  []

WE are very, very close...