Originally Posted by grolby

The problem here with lack of instruction is acknowledged, but I'm going to tell you that, if anything, your incorrect assessment of what went wrong here emphasizes the size of the problem. First, what exactly can an official say at the start line about technical corners to get Cat 5s safely through them? Yes, a warning that there are challenging corners on the course is good to have, but beyond that, what? "Hold your line"? One of the differences between a Cat 5 and a Cat 1 (or a typical Cat 3, even) is that a Cat 5 thinks "hold your line" is an instruction that conveys some kind of useful information to the riders hearing it. But it doesn't, and that's part of why we laugh at it as a tedious cliche around here. What these riders need is practical instruction on how to approach corners, both solo and in a large pack. And the only practical way to do that is on-the-bike clinics and instruction, which USAC doesn't want to make mandatory. "Hold your line" is a joke. Well, okay, what if you hold your line, but your line is dangerous and terrible? Or you think you're holding your line, but you aren't? And "don't cross wheels" is similarly supposed to do what, exactly? I think it's safe to say that these guys probably didn't want to cross wheels. They just failed to prevent it. Might as well tell them "don't crash."

And second, there's no way that these guys crossed wheels and crashed because they went into these technical corners too fast. Crashes in a Cat 5 race almost never have anything to do with speed. They happen because guys get into situations, in corners or even on straights, where they are going too slow, they're going all over the place in different directions, someone gets tangled up with someone else and down they go.



Let's not get overly dramatic, okay? There are lots of problems and limitations in the way that beginner racers are handled by USAC. That's a far cry from Cat 5 being pointless. It's better that we have Cat 5 than not. That's a pretty long way from the system being perfect, or even acceptable. But the basic concept served by Cat 5 is a good idea, even if it ends up being combined with Cat 4 sometimes. The problem is that just having a Category 5 is not sufficient by itself to address the needs of new racers.