Still way short motorefs. Please help our 2026 outreach.

[Bill Nagle]

Issue. We're still short local motorefs. MABRA's 2026 calendar will call for around 60 motoref days. We'll do well to fill half of that with local folks. Good motorefs enhance safety and sporting results for road races. Imports raise costs. Gaps increase risk. 

Action Requested. Please complement our upcoming push for new motorefs by using your network to find promising prospects, particularly beyond the bicycle racing community.

Outreach kit. 

• Steer curious folks to https://sites.google.com/view/motoref-mabra
• Contact mabra....@gmail.com 
• A very bush league flyer is attached

Some timing

• This topic is a likely talking point at the MABRA meeting Jan 11. Probably more concerted outreach after that. 
• Feb 7 is the next motoref course. They don't come around often and it's not the first step for someone getting started, so there's a very actionable window right now. Maybe we get lucky and find prospects quickly.
• But there will be other motoref courses. Let's not have our proselytizing begin or end over that date. We're engaged in a long struggle. Please keep this ongoing community need in the back of your head for idle chatter at your many cocktail parties, etc. 

Other musings

IMHO, outreach to our racing community is appropriate but it is probably more effective at finding folks to help us admire the problem than at directly reaching anyone who might be a solution to our needs. Racers are busy racing. Former racers already know about the possibility and may trickle in on their own when they feel like it. The sweet spot for the cure is in the meta-outreach to the fringe of or beyond the racing community where there are new folks who are moderately rational and have a passion for bicycles, motorcycles, and sport. 

Granted, it's about as hard to find a well-adjusted motorcyclist as it is a bicyclist. Our hunt is further complicated by needing folks who are in a life situation where they want to and can come out to the races now and then. But if you know one, please make a proactive direct personal appeal. Even if you don't, you will eventually bump into one of those special weirdos with potential. Please try to hang onto this notion of need to talk them up on the possibility. Even better, remember enough to send them our way. Rebuilding our bench is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Fingers crossed.

- Bill

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mabra....@gmail.com is active now and will be passed along to the future motoref den dad (or mom?) du jour. For now, Mike (rides the white Himalayan) or I (tall old fat guy on the little red Honda) will field emails there and are happy to get on the phone, too, with anyone who's interested.