FORGOTTEN MOTOCROSS TECH: THE CRAZY NAME GAME STARTED WITH “SX LITES”

Motocross used to be easily understandable to the layman (as well as hardcore racers). The classes were called 125, 250 and 500, although the 500 class was also euphemistically called the “Open class.” Then, every sanctioning body got into the naming-rights game; they tried to trademark words like Supercross, Arenacross, Supermoto, MotoGP, MXGP, SMX and any other alphabet combination that they could make a buck off of. It didn’t take long for the fascination with proprietary names extend to the class names. Suddenly, new class names sprang up like weeds—and typically the displacement of the bike was not a consideration in the class name. The pertinent question is whether or not all of this class branding helped the sport, hurts the sport or was just grandstanding by the sanctioning bodies. You be the judge.

THE GENESIS: For years, the names were fixed to the displacement of the bikes in the class. It made sense, and virtually everyone understood it—at least they did if they owned a 125cc, 250cc or 500cc motocross bike. Even if they didn’t know what the numbers stood for, it could be explained to them by saying, “That is the size of the engine.”

REWRITE: In 2001, after Yamaha began racing the YZ250F four-stroke in the 125 class (under a rule change that allowed four-strokes to have double the displacement of the two-strokes), the waters started to get muddy. Although still called the 125 class, the name became confusing when by 2006 there were no 125cc two-strokes racing in the 125 class. The quick and easy fix was to call it the 250F class (with the “F” signifying four-stroke), so as not to confuse it with the premier 250cc two-stroke class that had allowed 450cc four-strokes starting in since 1997. Eventually, the two-strokes were driven out of both classes. You would think common sense would dictate that the new class names would be the 250 and 450 classes (without the F)? Not so.

MISHMASH: In an effort to own the class names for business reasons the 250F class had its name changed to the Supercross Lites and Motocross Lites classes, while the 450 classes became the Supercross and Motocross classes (strangely tacked on what was already known at Supercross and Motocross) . Europe was also playing the naming game, when they changed the FIM 250 class to the MX2 class and the 450 class to MX1 (obvious borrowing auto racing.

COMMON SENSE: The potpourri of names is confusing, and making it more confusing is that every country has its own system. In the USA, the old 250 class became the 450 class for the AMA Nationals and in Supercross the 450 class became the “Supercross” class. Meanwhile, in Australia, the 450 class was known as the Open Pro class, while the Europeans called it MX1.

AGREEMENT: It can’t be good for the sport to have different names delineating what kind of bikes are on the track. Logic would say that the when the AMA Nationals came to their senses and changed their class names back to their simple cubic-centimeter class names (250 and 450), while the Supercross promoters went as far off-base as possible with their confusing Supercross Lites and Supercross designations.

Under the Supercross naming system, the Wimbledon Men’s winner would be called the Wimbledon Tennis Tennis Champion, because, in essence, the old AMA 450 Supercross Champion is now the AMA Supercross Supercross Champion and the AMA 125 West Supercross Champion is now the AMA Supercross Lites Western Regional Supercross Champion.

Somewhere between the AMA National’s logic and the Supercross series’ insanity lies the FIM. Their MX1 and MX2 nomenclature is based on automobile racing designations, like F1, F2 and F3. There is still the need to explain what the names mean to the general public. But the same is true for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camping World and K&N series names, not to mention Daytona Prototypes, GTP, Group C and GT in sports car racing.

MISHMASH: We applaud the AMA National Championship promoters for returning to the 250 and 450 class names, because that forced the “Lite” nomenclature out and returned to actual displacement numbers—albeit in Supercross they felt compelled to add SX after the displacement (as in 450SX). However, when Feld came up with the universally disliked Supermotocross name for its three-race play-off series at the end of the season, it was the epitome of stupid names—almost like it was borrowed from a video game box. Even worse, they have made serious efforts to push SMX onto the AMA Supercross Championship, by having the announcers and the scoreboard reference “SMX” at every corner. The AMA Supercross Championship is over 50 years old—it has its own traditions, fans and followers—SMX shouldn’t try to weaken the Supercross series to make their three-race series look bigger. It will in time become bigger or it won’t, but the AMA Supercross Championship will always have legs .

Obviously, we haven’t seen the end of name changing. There are now a whole bunch of World Vet Championships—and while the original Glen Helen World Vet Championship just celebrated its 40th anniversary a host of claim jumpers have jumped on the World Vet nomenclature for their newly formed events.

 Back in 2016, there was an SMX Supercross in Germany. It was a major flop.