Sparkplug 39

Well, the only way you could possibly miss the Winter Olympics telecasts is if your television is broken or you failed to pay your electricity bill. So with that in mind (the Olympics, not your dire personal situation), this week's Sparkplug is all about the Olympics and motorcycling, as in “Why the hell are motorcycling events excluded?”

I am old enough to say that I grew up in the era during which the Olympics truly represented the pinnacle of athletic achievement. Rare was the kid who did not aspire to stand on top of the podium to receive that special gold medal and hear the National Anthem played for his or her own personal triumph. EVERYONE in this country wanted to go to the Olympics and represent America. But the problem was, and still is, that not every sport is deemed “Olympic.”

For decades, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stuck to their guns and kept a lot of the newer sports segregated from their exalted Games. However, as the Games became more expensive they responded by becoming more commercialized, and the floodgates were opened for the new, more popular sports to get a toehold. The Olympics were held hostage to the almight television ratings, so drastic changes had to be made to battle the loss of viewers. All of a sudden, what was once the bastion of the amateur became the home of the professional. And once million dollar pro athletes were allowed into the Games, they were naturally followed by their million dollar brand name sponsors. Team Uniforms not only carried the name of the sportsman's home country, but also the name of the highest-bidding conglomerate. And still, the tv ratings sank.

So the Olympics held “exhibitions” of sports like mountain biking, mainly because mountain biking had already become wildly popular and had resurrected the entire bicycle industry. The same has happened with snowboarding. Yet the IOC has steadfastly refused to cross the line and allow motorsports to be represented at the Games, using the disengenious argument that a motor transforms the sport into a “non-athletic” endeavor because they're not human-powered.

Hmmm. Look at all of the Olympic “sports” that rely on non-human-powered vehicles: bobsledding, canoeing (whitewater), luge, sailing, skeleton. Ah, what's the point? We all know that a double-standard is being applied here, so why continue to fight it?

Why indeed. So my proposal is that an “Olympics of Motorsports” be organized, a once-every-two-years event that brings together ALL major forms of worldwide motorsports in practice today, both two- and four-wheeled. The host nation will have to be able to provide appropriate venues for each type of racing. If done correctly, can you imagine how big this would be? Here's my list of sports to include:

For Automobiles -

- Open wheel road racing
- Sportscar road racing
- Oval track pavement racing (NASCAR-style)
- Oval track dirt racing (World of Outlaws-style)
- Rally racing (and/or hillclimb)
- Drag racing

and for Motorcycles -

- Regular roadracing
- Supermoto roadracing
- Motocross
- Supercross
- Trials
- Cross Country
- Speedway

There you have it. Not too many disciplines, but enough to cover the sports well and to attract large worldwide audiences. Plus these sports provide plenty of opportunities for sponsorships and have a proven track record of generating good tv audiences. What do you think?