Candi Murray

There is no "15" rule. That is just more of a standard that we were held to
in the past. With the photo finish camera we were able to place deeper and
I have encouraged all officials to try and place as deep as possible.
The 4/5 field at this week's tabor was almost 3 times larger then any other
field. There were riders that went down 1-2 laps intermingled around the
course. The officials planned on placing as many as they could. However,
when they got to 16th place they started to encounter riders who were lapped
and the difficulty that they faced was in identifying those. Instead of
just listing them all and having to make multiple corrections, the decision
was made to just post what they knew were correct. The officials did not
feel very good about this. This discussion was to help figure out how to
make a compromise to make the most people happy.

Candi

_____

From: obra-bounces@list.obra.org [mailto:obra-bounces@list.obra.org] On
Behalf Of Michael Mann
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 9:03 AM
To: obra@list.obra.org
Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Tabor 4/5

My 2-cents

I'm (pretty much) fine with only the top 15 being scored. The officials are
working hard, and knowing I need to get to the top 20% (15%?) if I want my
name in lights is a good goal to have.
That said, It looks like everyone else in every other cat got placement
numbers - to 34th in Cat 3 and 31 in Masters men, so it looks like the "15"
rule was applied inconsistently. And I'm glad for them - It would be silly
to take that away for the sake of consistency. I only say something because
I briefly considered whether to race Masters or 4/5, and if I had finished
dead last in Masters (likely), at least I would have seen it, but in the
4/5s I'm chopped liver. Again, i don't really care. Maybe there were more
volunteers available to score those races and they were busy (racing?)
during the 4/5. Or maybe the subtle message that you don't "count" til you
place top 15 or race a higher cat is intentional.
I know a lot of guys passed me, and I know I passed a few, especially on
the last 2 laps, but other than that I have no clue where I placed. Part of
that is oxygen deprivation, part newbie-ness, and part the nature of the
course at Tabor.
Because Tabor is a series, it would be kind of nice to know my placement so
next week I know whether I improved it or not. But I don't expect the
officials to take care of that. One solution (and a good reason to be on a
team) is to have friends racing a different cat keep an eye out for your
position and time behind the leader when you cross the line. After all, one
of the reasons we race is to compare our performance with others. If I
didn't want that, I'd skip the fees and just go hammer Tabor alone for a few
laps. Not nearly as fun.