August 2004 - Supercross of BMX Woodward at his end!
After a couple of years running the UCI - Supercross of BMX events at Woodward - USA, talk is that this year will be the last of these events.
The real Supercross of BMX has been at the European Challenge Cup events at Slagharen - Holland. I named this event the Supercross of BMX. UCI started the Woodward event in order to replace the World Cup series, but in fact the results were even worse. It did not work.
The Woodward event was considered by many an X-treme sport instead of really BMX racing. I always did find this event non-realistic: o.k. TV was present, however personally I did never once see this event on TV in Holland. I know there is a list of stations who broadcasted the event (40 +), but the impact seems to be nil! Young people watching this event would probably realize themselves, that this was not a realistic sport for them to be a part of: too dangerous!
Anyway, the approx. $ 90,000. this Woodward adventure costs, could have been spent better on starting up the WORLD CUP formula again. There are several ways to realize a good series of World Cup events, specially since BMX became an Olympic sport, more sponsors might be interested and even better, more National Federations might be willing to sent (paying their expenses) 2 or 3 riders to World Cup events to compete in.
I sure hope UCI will consider starting up the World Cup series again in 2005 at least in 2006.
Gerrit Does
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.