tspek

I have been working on a project--a website that would help keep track of USAC upgrade points--recently only to find that it was a waste of time. Got this message from USAC's IT guy.

nitropowered

This will only work for races that submit results. and sometimes guys screw it up and don't put in dnfs thus lowering the field size, maybe into a lower bracket

tspek

Very valid point.

Homebrew01

Or they do report results, but make a typo so you don't get credit.

Grumpy McTrumpy

yay


just like the new improved bikeforums

slim_77

Bravo! I like it. I missed some points last season because they didn't divide the field.

You can always target the right races. The small office part crit that is held together by shoestrings and marshaled by the promoter's mother and aunt won't get the necessary detail to USAC. But we all know damn well the ones that will get it close to right.

ElJamoquio

Somehow I have 'points' as a cat 3 racer.

I haven't raced as a cat 3 yet.

tspek

It seems that perhaps I shouldn't abandon my project after all

txvintage

Damn, you're good.

bdcheung

doper

nitropowered

But in the grand scheme of things, its up to your upgrade guy. He could be more picky and be straight to the book, or just hand out upgrades. Know your upgrade guy and make sure you don't chop him or yell at him (if he races himself)

I could probably just ask for upgrades and get one w/o showing results.

carpediemracing 

On a side note, not sure if it's new this year, but for promoters you can just duplicate a prior year's event. This really helps me since a co-promoter did all this stuff before.

I think Masters races ought to be scored appropriately, instead of not counting at all (towards forced upgrades). I wonder how that'll play out for 2010.

cdr

schnabler1

Those are probably the points that are used for your ranking, not your upgrade. In 09 rankings went to a point based system.

Creakyknees

who needs dedicated software to keep track of upgrade points anyway? get out the calendar / training log, look up your races and results, do the math.

anyway, most guys I know who are chasing points, know exactly where they stand and how many remain at any given time, and are planning their season / remaining races around how to get the remaining points.

But, if the OP just likes to tinker, that's cool too.

McTufferton

This is the case w/ our regional rep. I've heard a story of a guy emailing to find out where he stood and getting a congratulatory email back w/ his "upgrade request" approved.

Up to a point, he seems to operate with a "if you think you can hang, you're welcome to upgrade" school of thought.

carpediemracing 

That's true for anyone looking to move up.

Problem are the sand baggers? My oft-repeated example - racer, Cat 3, Masters, in one season won 21 races, second place 22 times, I forget is 3rds through 6ths, National Champion (multi time Masters Crit, also on track but not sure what events), considered $1500/weekend "reasonable" for prize winnings (this was 10 years ago). He refused to upgrade literally for 10 or more years.

The system wouldn't flag him because he'd choose races where promoters don't report results, or he'd do Masters (usually 2 in a day, plus the 3s) and Masters don't count for automatic upgrade points.

When he started getting upgraded annually he'd enter a bunch of 1-2 races, sit up, and by the middle of May he'd be downgraded back to Cat 3s. Then repeat the process.

He'd often win P123 races or at least be in the top few spots. If he couldn't make money doing that I wouldn't complain, but he did.

There are other guys who place all the time in Masters but they can't place in P123s so to me that's fair.

cdr

patentcad

Cynic.

mattm

I read this back on the 2nd and just about spit out my coffee - I'd just started a similar site... so that makes three of us I guess. =]

Here's my initial stab at a race results tracking site, using Gerlach's race results as an example.

Change the dropdown to Cat 2 and hit the Analyze button to see how many points he'd get assuming he was a Cat 2 with the same results - his Cat-o-meter would be 106% in that case. (field sizes are currently estimated, but can be manually changed)

You can also export the results to CSV or RSS - and the "Create Race Resume" button will generate a table of your results - though I need to make that something pasteable into the USAC upgrade form.

I've had fun using it to check up on how close some of my friends/competitors are to upgrading.. and maybe it'll save people time when creating their first race resume.

This is part of why I made raceo.us - WSBA doesn't report anything it seems, so the site uses data from USAC, WSBA, or OBRA - more race orgs coming eventually.

Anyway check out the site and lemme know what you think. https://raceo.us

Tspek, got a link to your results site?

tspek

I love what you're doing. I'll post a link to the site when it's ready to be presented. It's close, but not there. Our methodology differs but I think there are flaws with each (ie, relying on USAC's results page to collect the results). I may still implement that but as of right now the user has to enter the race results. Yours is certainly quicker for someone who just wants the points.

*EDIT*

For example, your site reports that I've only got 4 USAC Cat 5 races complete when I've actually done 6. I don't think this is the fault of your programming but the result of poor race reporting. It's spot on for my cat 4 points for instance.

mattm

Cool - thanks for the feedback! So the two missing Cat 5 races aren't reported? Makes sense. Glad to hear the Cat 4 points are correct though.

Looking forward to seeing your site - plenty of room in this little niche for results tracking sites I think.

tspek

The races are on my results page but your program doesn't appear to be able to scrape the results. I'm not sure why, i'll PM you my license #

ericm979

Looks cool but all I get is "error getting rider info".