As a newer racer, I think a clinic would be a great requirement prior to racing. Something like "clinic instruction on the following topics are required prior to entry into a race: insert items here".

However, there seems to be a shortage of these clinics. We have them in NorCal, but they are in January and not too many new racers are thinking about clinics or racing in January. If there were clinics available on a stand alone bi-monthly basis or prior to races on a montly basis, that could be beneficial. There seems to be a lot of experienced folk that offer up "go to a clinic, go do drills, etc", but there aren't a lot of clinics nor a lot of experienced folks readily available to run through bumping drills with cat 5s. Most 5s aren't on teams, so they likely don't have those resources/people at hand. As a result, it tends to come down to learning by doing in the cat 5 races. In the long run, it works, but might not be the best option.