Rocket Richard

First of all, this is my first season in cat 5, so the stakes were not really high; but I'm still bummed out because I'm trying to shine up the resume' to get bumped to cat 4 without the needed 10 mass starts. This was the Mississippi Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago. This was a 3 event race weekend and GC for overall time and points. It started off with the road race, a 30 mile loop with a long sprint up hill to the finish. Myself and a team-mate broke away in a really slow corner and put about a 1/4 mile on the pack within about 8 or so miles. We were going along really good until the lead motorcycle begins to slow down then stop!...I was like WTF!! We come to a fork in the road and it was 2 gravel roads. He throws his hands up in disgusts and says he missed a turn. Well aint that a "howdy doo". We turn around and finally find the road we missed by this time the 20 man chase group has caught us and the first to be dropped group goes the correct way because the support vehicle advises them so. So the slow pack cross the line first and the rest us were all at least 10 minutes back. Well, with enough yelling and screaming, the USCF official says he will make all of our times even. Now there was 4 mile TT the same day in the afternoon. I placed first, with a team-mate 3 seconds behind and another 30 seconds behind. There were only 3 people within the 9 minute range. At the end of the TT, I heard some cat 5's complaining that there times were screwed up (hint; keep this on your back-burner). All the times were posted and I was in the lead for the GC with 30 seconds going into the Crit. I knew who I had to watch for the crit. There was one guy who broke but we let him go because I knew everyone else was at least a minute behind me. I finished 3rd in the crit and thought I had the GC. Come to find out the guy that crossed the line because his time was messed up in the TT so they credited him a whole minute, even though he told everyone his time after he finished his TT; which was over 10 minutes. Soooo, this puts me in 2nd for the GC. That sucked,,,I didn't even stay to get my awards. Maybe I'll race the Texas circuit next season.

merlinextraligh

This is unfortunate, but 1) it's very difficult to do timing for stage races in amateur events, 2) the people doing it are paid little or nothing for their efforts. We need to be appreciative for the efforts they put in, and suck it up when they make mistakes.

EventServices

This won't help numb the pain, either: It's up to the riders to know the course. You can't blame to moto-marshal for that one.

And as for the TT times, you now have a better idea of how difficult it is to run a multi-category time-based stage race.

Who was doing the timing? What method were they using?

jbhowat

Hey man, thats bike racing. Sometimes **** gets out of control even at the pro-level. Look at the chase group getting stopped by that train in Paris-Roubaix.. then subsequently getting DQ'd.

EventServices

Well said.

"That's bike racing."

That's a phrase that comes in handy more often than people realize. It covers a lot of territory, too.

timmhaan

sucks for both you actually. i'm sure the "winner" doesn't feel great about it either.

Snicklefritz

not that I've raced a lot since it's my first season, but I look at this sort of thing like getting extra change from a vending machine. If I get extra money or an extra soda I don't feel guilty because I know down the road I will get gipped at some point. So it all events out eventually.