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I started racing NBL in 1979 by 1980 I was sold on ABA.
Has anything changed since then?In 1979 I raced mostly NBL. I was new to BMX but couldnt tell you where I finished in the points. In 1980 I was split and racing both NBL and ABA.
In 1979 I was ABA #1 all year but in NBL my points were sent to both PA and sperately to NJ/ HUH wtf. Well How did I finish in NBL that year?
Have no clue, the lame NBL only published the top 50, thats for the entire state of NJ. I probably was 51 lol, ill never know. Then again I got points in PA so I finished out of the top 50 in two states lol.
The ABA meanwhile was dialed. I finished #6 in 79 (actually #1 lol but ABA cheated me to get a track to switch sanctions) and #185 in 80. (I crashed at the NBL Flemington national in 80 and missed all of the summer of 80). One sanction let all the riders know where they finished in points (ABA) the other sanction (NBL) didnt care.ABA points and newspaper dialed, NBL beginner. That was then.
ABA points today (dialed if you can read them without a magnifying glass), newspaper and website all dialed in. NBL? lol look at their site, Brokenspokes.Net is more dialed.Look at who is sponsoring the NBL nationals. They cant even get MCS who basically started the NBL or Profile from their own strongest state of Florida.
Both sanctions are killing the sport with their greed of 1 gazillion nationals, no importance anymore to the local scene, no promotion outside the sport and making tracks to please the top riders and not tracks that a beginner can race (or veteran butcasual racer like me). yeah the top riders have gotten insanely fast and great but are riders who have never set foot on a BMX track before any better today???????? Everyone says that beginners and new riders are the backbone to BMX yet they kiss ass to all the fastest racers to hear them say after a track rebuild, OMG dude thats so awesome! Wow howd we get enough dirt for 100 jumps? O yeah get rid of backside and make the jumps lippy let you use less dirt. Good Job man. this will really seperate the technical riders from the posers”
good job making a track the new kids look at and go no way man, but outloud when asked what they think say, “man this is awesome, looks really cool” then he never comes back.
Both sanctions are killing the sport, but at least with the ABA your doing it dialed in.
Alot of it is up to us. i live out west for now. But when I was living back in NJ once me and Dave went to Vineland for a City Council or Parks dept meeting.
We told them we were interested in repopening the old track and they wanted more info.
I lived like 2 hours away and just never went back (I dont know Daves excuse, probably school, yeah like thats important).In California you can pretty much forget opening a track unless u get lucky, but if I move down south like I plan to, I will open a old school meets new school track (before I get to old to lie about beating Dave).
Its all in the committment. think of what you want the track to look like, picture it in your minds eye. then think of parks that could hold a 2 or 3 acre facility. Or consider buying 2 acres of land and incorporating it so your not liable. Maybe get a local shop to partner with you and they get a onsite space for a trailer at each race.
I regret not going back to vineland, i regret not working hard to bring back the Saylorsburg, PA track that is still there under weeds. A downhill track that could be the jewel of the East Coast if done right.
No more regrets 🙂
I only met Harry once but will never forget it.
I was one of the guys that helped build Lawrenceville. Mind you Marty ran it and hired a backhoe operator but I was there to help give direction and the newspaper came out to take pictures of us on the track before it was finished. Other racers that helped were Kim Wolfkill and Paul Smith.After racing NBL most of 1978 in 1980 I was racing ABA as much as possible trying to get Penn-1 #1. I lived on the Delware river (PA side) and once rode to Lawville to race.
One day I was hanging out at Lawville on a non race day with Marty and had been trying all year to get him to go ABA. That day Harry showed up and was trying to get Marty to go NBA. I argued a bit with Harry, and Marty ever the politician, just listened. Lawville never went ABA or NBA. Either way the NBA was history and the better sanction went on to become the biggest sanction in the history of BMX.
That being said, Im sorry the NBA died now and wished I had raced it a few times. Now that im not a punk teen, I realize how much Harry did for BMX in New Jersey and how much work he must have put into Craigmeur. (I spectated the 80 nationals there, I didnt race for some reason if it was after Flemington then thats the reason, i seeperated my shoulder at that race)
Harry Meyers was to North Jersey BMX what the Zueners were to South Jersey. Some of the best times of my life were those early days of BMX and without realizing it then, guys like Harry were the reason.