Wow, I'm sorry I offended so many Masters. We go through the same heated discussions on the WA State list serve with the same predictable results. I know, no Master likes to be called a sandbagger, and everyone wants a "fair" race. Unfortunately this rarely happens in any area.
Originally Posted by
Racer Ex
In California there are 35+ 4/5 and 45+ 4/5 races offered at a lot of events. Most actually.
A few years ago I looked at the revenue stream from the various Master's category riders in masters races. While the majority of those guys were 3/4/5, they produced about the same amount of yearly entry revenue as the 1/2's. 3/4/5 guys would do 5-6 races a year, the 1/2's would do 30 or more.
You can pander to the entry level guys all you want, but your core group that shows up race after race is the same people you say are sandbagging.
In an ideal world I guess that everyone over 30 would race against people in their same age bracket, AND their same category (Masters 30-35+ Cat 1/2, Masters 30-35+ Cat 3, Master 30-35+ Cat 4, Masters 30-35+ Cat 5....Masters 45-50+ Cat 1/2, Master 45-50+ Cat 3, Master 45-50+ Cat 4, Master 45-50+ Cat 5....Masters 50-55+ Cat 1/2, Master 50-55+ Cat e3, and so on and on and on). I assume that Southern California and other larger metro areas have enough racers to consider breaking down races in such fashion.
Originally Posted by
rkwaki
No I think what Shovel is suggesting is that you can race whatever you're allowed to not that the Masters race with the 1-2 but that there are many 1-2 that can race Masters (myself included) and are not sandbagging.
You can race with the Elite 1-2's, or you can race with the Masters open field. No one is telling any Elite racer that he/she cant race in their elite category. I suspect that what you would like is a Masters (insert your age) 1/2 field. Yes, in an area with a big enough population of racers, this would be great. In my area you'd be racing with one or two other racers on a consistent basis.
Originally Posted by
gsteinb
reading isn't your strong suit, is it?
Yes in an ideal world, Masters would race in a "Master (insert your age), Cat (insert your category) field". Unfortunately this doesn't happen. So which way do you want it? Should Master 1-2's race with Elite 1-2's, should Master 1-2's have to race "down" with Elite Cat 3's, or god give you strength, Elite cat 4-5's?
In our area we have made the choice to have open (cat 1-5) Masters fields because that seems to accommodate the most racers. We race the Masters 40+ with the Elite 4/5's and they're scored separately (maybe I wasn't clear on this before), and we race the Masters 50+ with the Masters 60+ (both scored separately).
Seriously, as a small-time grassroots race promoter and an as an official, I'm asking for better suggestions on how to set up our fields. So far I haven't seen a good argument one way or another. The Masters saga continues.