Southern California - CBR and USAC

I figured I may get a few more answers here than in the Racing forum so here we go. First, I applied for my license this week and can't wait to get shelled at various crits throughout the remainder of the season.

I notice there are few coming up, Monkey and Son fits into my schedule quite nicely but it doesn't say anything about being a USAC race just CBR, so my intuition tells me this won't count towards my 10 mass starts. Will it?

Also, I notice there are two USAC Upgrade Race Series' in the fall, both offering 2 races a day on 3 different occasions. This seems like a good deal as I would treat these strictly as training (which is what they are I gather) and get points to CAT up at the same time. Anyone have any experience with these?

Thanks guys.

No, it won't. I had the same problem when I tried to get my upgrade. CBR and USAC don't like each other very much. Chris is a loud mouth buffoon but he's called out usac on some shady stuff and they don't like that. Apparently they've reached some sort of truce which will allow his races to count towards usac. There are a couple threads in the racing forum about this. You can also read Chris' blog to see why he might rub some people the wrong way. Great stuff!

The upgrade crits (one each in Oct/Nov/Dec) will count toward USA upgrades as they are USAC races. Chris runs them but has USAC endorsement for them. I did one last year and was surprised at the competitiveness. I thought going in that, being the off-season, it would be a little more mellow. They weren't.

The CBR crit (Monkey & Son) will not count toward USAC upgrade.

I raced and double dipped all the Upgrade races last year and they all counted.

I don't know if Chris is a buffoon or not. I like him but I can see how he rubs people the wrong way. He has always been polite and to my team.

CBR races are great because they are longer and generally safer.

Chris did say his CBR races will count next year, he said they may be more expensive though.

CBR downside is if you don't have a license they are a little pricey to race.

Race as much as you can.

I will be double dipping in all the USAC races to get my 10 starts, 12 if I do them all then probably apply for my upgrade. I will still probably do the remaining two CBR races for experience, thanks for info.

I will be double dipping in all the USAC races to get my 10 starts, 12 if I do them all then probably apply for my upgrade. I will still probably do the remaining two CBR races for experience, thanks for info.


IMHO. I would suggest just getting your 10 done. It's a waste of money to do anymore than that. Use the next 2 towards your 3 upgrade. On our team we incentives getting people out of the 5's. Good Luck.

IMHO. I would suggest just getting your 10 done. It's a waste of money to do anymore than that. Use the next 2 towards your 3 upgrade. On our team we incentives getting people out of the 5's. Good Luck.
Ah, good point, thanks for that. They last 2 are scheduled for the 4th and the 11th of December, barring anything going wrong would I get my upgrade approved between the 4th and the 11th, or is that pushing it time wise?

Ah, good point, thanks for that. They last 2 are scheduled for the 4th and the 11th of December, barring anything going wrong would I get my upgrade approved between the 4th and the 11th, or is that pushing it time wise?

Greg Aden is the guy that does the upgrades for the area. It depends, some guys on the team got theirs in a couple of days and some took a couple of weeks. You can finish the ten and then register as a 4 at the Dec and talk to Greg if it doesn't happen by then. Although you will have a month between the Nov and Dec upgrade so you should be ok.

Ah I see that one series offers 3 races per day so I will be able to upgrade in November before the December series' starts, I thought it was only 2. That should be plenty of time, thanks for the help.