Race Format

[velobruce]

Thought I'd try to find out what the current thoughts of CX promoters on the format for this year's CX races and CRY.

Last year, the field sizes at the big metro-area CX races were so large they overwhelmed our ability to score them quickly and accurately. We need to do something different this year for those races. The A-B-C format will not work unless transponders are in play, and then there are still some potential safety issues to think about. In addition, field limits are a consideration. All three fields in the A-B-C format of the past have a field limit of 75 because Cat 5 men are technically eligible to race in any of the 3 fields due to the Masters 35+ and masters 45+ categories having no category restrictions in the A and B races.

Is an A-B-C-D or A-B-C-D-E format being considered? If so, how will the categories be distributed between the races?

The alternative is for the officials to start actually applying the CX rule that states that "lapped" riders will be pulled. (As a practical matter, riders would be pulled before being lapped as they are in criteriums.) This would make for some unhappy riders in the "slower" fields within each race, not to mention having about 6 riders left on the course at the end of the A race.

Maybe this has already been discussed among the CX promoters, but I have not been privvy to that discussion, so I thought I'd try to find out what people are thinking.

[thayes]

Bruce-

Thanks for raising your questions. There has been some conversation about this among the CX promoters list and we have yet to reach a consensus. In fact, I will forward you some of the emails that have been sent out. Both of the Grumpy's/LGR CX races will have 4 fields...to ease the pain!

Check your email, but I believe there has been some confusion from some CX promoters and MCF leadership regarding the officials opinion on field size and what needs to be done about it...the last thing you want is lapped riders to be pulled!

Thanks

[velobruce]

My bad. There is no Cat 5 in CX.

As a practical matter, accurately and quickly scoring a race with more than about 50 riders is very difficult.

[bschwartz]

Regarding pulling riders, I've been to many races, mostly crits, where they pull riders for a while and then stop. That gets the numbers down to a point where you can actually keep track of things while still leaving more than 6 riders.

[dcleary]

No pulling riders in CX. Everyone gets to suffer their alloted time . Thats why we try to match skillset/size by race, albeit not always a perfect mix but close enough for the officials to keep track.

Fields are much larger than in the past and nationally its become a more focused discipline for a lot of riders. Thus why you see USAC formalizing Categories (and for those old-school A/B/C self-select fellas, the real reason we need to "formalize" our own races a bit more than a handful of years ago).

Pulling CX riders might be something considered years down the road if the growth still continues but with the likes of chip timing becoming more popular, that may not have to happen. Lets hope everyone can ride in circles for a long time to come. They paid, they should get to suffer for the full time period.

When the officials wave the white flag saying they can no longer manage the numbers, we'll have to consider what alternatives have to be taken.

[thayes]

Sadly, with only 5 races needed to be a cat3 there will be a ton of lapping going on in Race 1 with the likes of Doug Swanson and Kevin Schaeffer in the same race.

[KSchaeffer]

I'll be doing the regular cat 3 race this year, not the masters 35+, I'm done getting in dougies way... let's see how many times you can lap me!