Kayce

There is a big shift of who in who is organizing our track for next season. We are still in early discussion, so everything is still on the table. One thing that has been floating out there is the use of ATRA rather than US Cycling. I know there are a lot of tracks that run it. What are your experiences with their system?

carleton

ATRA is a great system. Rock Hill, DLV, The Superdrome (among others) use it for their weekly races.

I believe it's simply easier and less expensive to run under ATRA. The rules are generally the same for racing and more relaxed in terms of equipment.

bitingduck

It's much less expensive to run races under ATRA, though I've only run races under USAC, since HDC pretty much wouldn't let us use ATRA. You pay $3/head/day in insurance (last I checked-- it could have gone up again) for racing, and less for training and racing events[edit: for that's for USAC races--- I think ATRA you don't pay by the head-day). Around here the local association decides how many officials you get. There's a little room for negotiation, but officials can get expensive for a day of track racing. We usually had 4 for a day of mass start (sometimes 3) and could get by with one or two for TTs.

My impression is that the insurance through ATRA isn't as good-- the policy is a pool where if they end up paying out due to something at one track, the effective limit is lower for the remaining tracks. Through USAC I think the default is still $1M in coverage for the event, and you can get $4M for not much more. That's coverage for the promoter and "additional insured".

Through USAC, the riders also get $25K accident coverage ($5K deductible if they're otherwise uninsured, $1K deductible if they have insurance) which I've seen far too many riders need to take advantage of. *Way* too many riders race uninsured, and since many of them are my friends who I actually like, I'm glad I always did USAC events, because they could get that insurance coverage in crashes. I don't think ATRA has an comparable rider coverage.