As many of you know I have a goal of promoting upto 5 races next year. My goal for the races are to keep the entry fee low and to not over work the officials and volunteers. So I am thinking that we will hold just catagory races and not age graded races (with the exception of Juniors). I have my eye on some new courses and some courses that have not been used in many years.
Please post your opinions on my proposed schedule for all crits in the series. This is a chance to feed me your opinion before it is set in stone. I know I have heard a lot of talk about moving Juniors to middle of the day and I like the idea of having a mid day break for the officials and volunteers to eat lunch and to allow the course to be open for riding. Here's my schedule:
9:00 Cat 5 45 minutes
10:00 Cat 3/4 1 hour
11:15 Women’s Open 1 hour
12:15 to 12:45 break open course
12:45 Juniors 10-14 30 minutes
1:30 Juniors 15-18 45 minutes
2:30 Pro 1/2/3 90 minutes
4pm race over
By not having age graded races we can increase the length of the races and potentially increase the prize money per event (of course thats not what its about right?).
Opinions Please!
7 comments:
90 minutes is a long crit (at least by D20 standards). I suppose a pancake-flat course would work well for that duration, but you can expect to have to deal with people trying to take feeds (regardless of what the rules might allow).
I'm not saying I wouldn't ride (I would actually like to see some longer-duration crits), but if you are trying to do a weekly series, a 90 minute crit would certainly put a hamper on the rest of the race week for some folks, which might make your race less attractive if it is adjacent in date to a big race (no offense to yours ;) )
That's all I've got, and keep in mind, I'm used to the monotony of 60 minute MABRA crits with one medium-sized incline per lap.
I wouldn't know about the 90 minute crit being a lowly Cat 5'er soon to be Cat 4. What I would hope to see is a strictly Cat 4 race so that some of the bottom end 4's (like me) might have a little bit more of a chance at holding than they would racing against the 3's.
Junior races are boring...sure I get the support the youth, but most of these juniors are category guys. Don't make everybody wait while you get 10 kids rolling around a crit.
Think back to CSC and the ING Cap. Crit, they were out there for 85-100 laps, that is about an hour and a half or more, so 90 minutes is fine if you have the time/location to support that duration. If you want to race like the Pros you have to get the experience somehow!!
As for JR.s start them with the women and score them separately so you can address the concern of how many races you have for the day. And as anon pointed out they can race up if they are Cat guys.
Here is some logic-
Cat 5- 8am or 9am
Women 4/jrs- 9am or 10am
Cat 3/4- (4's should be strong enough to hang with 3's and need the experience to upgrade)
Masters 45+ (why do I say 45+ and not 35+? because 35+ can race in the 3/4 or the 1,2,3)
Women OPEN (allows women 4s to get experience and race again, YES I am supporting women!)
Pro 1,2,3- this is your last event of the day and your highlight event generally begins in the afternoon say 2:30 or 3:00pm depending.
Two part comment/opinion here:
As a racer for me to race against cat 3's (where I eventually want to be) would be a good thing. Would it be hard? Yes! But isn't that what racing is supposed to be anyway?
As an official.....right of the bat the idea of a shorter day is a GOOD THING!!! I like the idea of having only category races w/no masters events. I know that some folks will be upset about that, but it's your race! Put it on how you like & don't worry about the grumbling that will happen. I have to disagree with KML about having juniors race with the women. Look at last year's 10-14 year old races. The longer the season went on the bigger that race got! We had a 5-way fight for that BAR for crying out loud!!! How awesome is that?!
Long way around to say that I like the idea. The only "change" I would make is to NOT have a 1/2/3 race since there's a 3/4. There's always been a "problem" getting 1/2's to come to your event if there's no real money out there for them. The 3's will fuss that they'll never have a chance to get the experience if they don't race with 1/2's. I agree, but there's other races they can do throughout the season. Don't worry about the time! Do a 90 minute race if you want to!!!
That's my 2 cents.....
i agree with gilbert. if there is a 3/4 event, you should put it to a pro 1/2 race, and throw alot of the prize money that way, considering its the biggest race of the day. this year I have seen very few cat 3's be able to do a 3 race, and then be competitive in a long 1/2/3 event. especially at the sportsplex with the heat, it makes it extremely difficult. make it a pro 1/2 event, with decent money, and you'll probably see a strong field with the likes of battley harley, dc velo, and rpc.
Most officials will not allow for combined women-jr race as one poster suggested. That used to be done around here, but not anymore. Plus, it is very hard for beginning women/ beginning jrs to deal with additional dynamics that combined races bring. From past experience running Cat 1/2 only races: you need to throw money out to make that a decent sized field, esp in Hampton Roads. If you were in D-20, no problem, but around here, the field would need to depend on those travelling to make it a good size. I would say any less than $1500 purse for that one race would mean making it 1/2/3. I would combine all the juniors into one race (separate scoring), run Cat 4 by themselves, and add a 40+ race. BOOMERS remember are legion, and that gives a sizeable # of the Cat 3's two options (40+ and 1/2/3).
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