I think the secret to a good 'cross race is the course. A dirt road and a couple barriers just doesn't cut it. You've got to throw in some runups, off-cambers, tricky turns, mud or sand... basically, if you aren't in danger of taking the wrong line and ending up off your wheels at least a couple times a lap, it's not a 'cross race.
I use cross season as a skills session. I don't need to be fit until April, or at the earliest, Feb, so I just use this time of the year as a break from the road with no training pressure. It helps that Portland is home to purportedly the largest 'cross race in the world. Alpenrose Dairy, Cross Crusade #1, drew out about 1,400 racers in total this year.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter