Our sport is one of speed, strength and hanging it out just a little more than 2nd place.  It’s a sport of fitness, agility, and concentration.  It’s a sport that families love, where kids grow up idolizing their fathers, local pros and the superstars of the AMA.  In a lot of ways our sport hasn’t changed that much from the days of Rick Johnson and David Bailey chasing each other around Carlsbad raceway.  In other ways, however, those days couldn’t be further away. Like anything motocross too changes, it’s inevitable. Sometimes the change is subtle and other times it comes with the ground-shaking roar of four strokes.

Our sport is about to change again when in the coming months a new AMA rule will take effect and alter the demographics of our pro class.  The rule essentially changes the minimum age that a racer can jump from the amateur ranks to the big show.  Without giving you the word-for-word-mouthful as it is written in the AMA rulebook, here is basically what’s about to happen.  As of January 1st, 2010, a racer must be 17 years old in order to race professionally instead of 16, as was the 2009 rule.  Following that, for the 2011 season a racer must be 18 in order to turn pro.  This rule thereby creates a two-year wait for young racers who are not 17 years old as of January 1st, 2010.  The very essence of our sport, as listed above, lends itself to youth; however, this rule seems to be removing some of the youth from the highest pinnacle of our sport.

Although it may be putting many young careers on hold for two years, the creation of this rule was intended to allow young amateurs to have a few more years to be “kids” before they are tossed into the high pressure world of professional motocross racing.  Hopefully they will build on their existing education.  Hopefully they will continue to push their limits and be ready to raise motocross to the next level.  And hopefully they will gain some maturity, so that they are ready to handle big-money contracts, pro-career pressures, injuries, and also be around long enough to enjoy race wins and championship victories.

The 18+ rule raises a lot of questions, perhaps the biggest of all being who was instrumental in its design.  Was it a top-down decision from the AMA or, did team managers and others within the industry request it?  What will these young racers do for two years while they wait?

Ken Roczen's move to the U.S. will be affected by the new rule.

This article is not intended to say whether this rule is right or wrong for motocross.  This article is not intended to point fingers or promote our opinions.  We at VURB Insider simply want to break this wide open and give you a look at how this rule is going to change American motocross forever.  While creating this article I’ve had the unique opportunity to talk with many different people, all with different stakes in American motocross.  Every single one of them is passionate about our sport and wants it to grow and improve.  Although their opinions differ, they all share the same love for motocross as you and I.

The main thing I wanted to find out when researching this new rule was where it came from.  Who pushed for it, and why?  Well, it seems that this story begins in 1994.  Supercross was really taking off, and racers were developing their skills younger and younger.  The phenomenon of making an incredible living by riding motorcycles was coming to fruition.  Teams were spending more and more money on contracts, in order to ensure that the next big thing was riding on their bikes, using their products, and wearing their clothing.  There was an unbelievable amount of pressure on teams to pick the right rider. One who would not just win races, but produce championships and titles year after year.  It was also a time when racers were getting hurt, lawsuits were increasing and amateur motocross was seeing kids drop out of school very young in order to cris-cross the nation following their dreams.  Representatives from the very highest levels of the motocross industry saw potential problems developing and tossed around the idea of a minimum age requirement for pro racers; however, nothing was passed.  Now, 15 years later, we are faced with that rule.

The AMA developed this rule at the request of its partners: the OEMs, Supercross (Feld) and Motocross (MX Sports).  These organizations know what’s required to push our sport to the next level and they felt that this rule was necessary for three reasons:

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Riders like Max Anstie (youngest rookie on the line in 2009) jumped ship early in order to beat the rule.