Kent Peterson
This is a message from Richard Sweet and he asked me to post it for him.
To OBRA land,
Many of you do not know who I am but I used to race a lot of mountain bike
races in the mid to late 1990's and have recently started racing road and
mountain again. The problem you are describing is the reason I quit racing
the shorter MTB races. Paying $35.00 to race a gravel road course that was
poorly marked for 20 miles or 1 1/2-2 hours, finishing around 12:00 and then
waiting for 3-4 hours to get your $20.00 for a top 5 finish in the expert
course if you were lucky. Then paying $5 for food, $10-$15 to camp, driving
for 2-3 hours for a 2 hour race that wasn't fun, getting lost . It got old
really quick and I found other racers complaining about the same thing. Now
I know promoters out there are thinking that everyone complaining should go
out and promote a event and see what it is like. Well I can say I did 4
short weekly races and helped out with the Oakridge fat tire festival for a
couple years from 94-96. Then I helped Scott Taylor start the Cascade Cream
Puff 100 and we put that on for 4 years before getting tired of promoting
and not riding our bikes. If you want to complain about marking a course and
dealing with racers for 2-4 hours then I suggest putting on a race where
most people finish after 12 hours and are around all weekend, supply meals,
camping, etc... It was also commented on as being one of the best run races
anyone that did it had seen. Now Don Person promotes the event and nothing
has changed except you must register in a 3 day period and hope you get in.
Race promotion is not easy and not cheap, the forest service, blm and
private land owners require $$ to use the land. There are a lot of classes
to give awards to and keep track of and sponsorship has gone down. The
mention about a computer is good but not needed for mtb racing. Keep track
of the top 10 in the field and don't worry about the times, the fastest
results have always come from this, i.e. Mudslinger. Staple pull tags on a
board and that is how you finished, if your interested in how far you were
behind the leader ask them when they came in. It isn't a bad idea to write
down the riders times when they came across the line for future reference.
I plan on taking Jonathan's challenge and promoting several race's in the
Lane County area next year, a cross country, dirt TT, Short Track, and
maybe a downhill. I want to do a series in Lane County that will challenge
and reward all the racers that show up. The cost will be low, $20 or less
and there will be a combined price for multiple events. I am glad to have
OBRA as the sanctioning body, trust me it is far better than NORBA ever was.
Everyone has trouble at races, including the people putting them on.
Volunteers are great to have and usually it is a communication problem that
creates the problems most of us have seen. It is hard not to go to the races
when we don't have that many of them. Voicing our concerns in writing is one
way of letting the promoters know how we feel, not going back is another.
But if the latter is your choice and the event dies out and there is not
anther one to take it's place we will have no races. If we don't want our
sport to die away we need to be proactive and take control of it.
Volunteering to help out is one way to change things, take one or two
weekend a year to help out at your local race and do what you can to make it
a great event.
Promoters should not take this negatively and use the feedback to make their
event better the next time.
Richard Sweet
EWEB Windpower
-----Original Message-----
From: Kent Peterson [mailto:kd-@mindspring.com]
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 8:59 AM
To: Richard Sweet
Subject: Re: FW: MTB Race's
Kent Peterson Photography
230 Polk Street
Eugene OR 97402
Voice: 541-343-4301 FAX: 541-343-4827
www.kentpeterson.com
www.continuationbook.com