Jon Myers

Organized unsanctioned races are very dangerous to all events or participants of legitimate permitted events, particularly events that depend on public lands.
For years I have worked with Team S&M promoting a mountain bike race using Oregon Department of Forestry land. It takes a long time to develope relationships with the public agencies that allow these events.
One year as I was setting up on Saturday for the Sunday race, I saw a whole bunch of runners participating in organized (timed, placed, entry fee, etc.) event called a scramble. The scramble was an event that runners strike out along a course that does not alway use trails and sometimes crosses some very extreme terrain. In this case, they were running across a large salmon bearing stream among other off-limit areas. Best of all, they did not have any type of authorization or permit for the event.
A few minutes after I arrived, so did the local forest ranger. He was very angry with the guy promoting the running event and after chewing that promoter out, he came over to talk with me. The first thing that he asked me was,"Do you know this guy?" as he pointed back to the scramble promoter. I had to tell him that I did know him but I did not know anything about the event and had nothing to do with it.
I feel very lucky that I was there and was able to let the ranger know that I did not have anything to do with the un-permitted event, but un-permitted events like that one can impact everyone and could have easily resulted in denial of access to all users in the future.
In the many years that I have beening putting on races and working with land owners, I have learned that permitting agencies often judge users based on the least responsible users and the actions of a few can have an impact on the greater community. So, if you are organizing any event where you take money, donations, or require a waiver, please get a permit so you don't screw it up for the rest of us.
-Jon Myers