Don, I'm in the motorcycle business and although we have a few riders that commute to work on their bikes, most bikes are as sold and used as "weekend toys". Most bikes are large displacement and/or high performance models. My commuter bike has 158 horsepower and will run 10's in the quarter with hard saddlebags installed, but it only gets 35 to 40 mpg. Heck, my F150 crew cab gets 15 mpg pulling the race car on a trailer, so it's all relative. Motorcycles are not going to save you any money when you add in tires (my tires last about 4 to 6000 miles and cost $300/pair), service, insurance, finance expense, and depreciation expense. You might tell the wife you NEED a bike to save on gas expense, but don't try to sell me on the story because it won't pencil out. The closest riding area for our dirt bike and ATV riders is over one hour away, so they need to factor transportation cost into their weekend expense.

What I'm seeing and hearing others talk about is the high travel expenses to events. One of our class racers spent $700 in diesel fuel going to the Phoenix race this year from Sacramento and back. Several cars have already been parked for this season in our racing group because of expenses or job cut backs. My son and I have already discussed that depending on how we are doing in our points chase this year that we might not complete the full season due to 1000 mile round trips to events. As the class defending champion we feel obligated to support our sanction, but money comes first. We might need to look at other sanctions that have events closer to our home base in the future (Bakersfield and Fontana). I'm not seeing full stands for NASCAR and NHRA TV races. The event promoters should be very concerned for the next two years to see how fast this comes back.