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Debugging the new junior rollout rule
Mon, 01/22/2007 - 7:03pm
At the Cal Aggie Crit juniors were pulled out of the starting grid to roll out just before the pro/1/2/3 race, thus giving up their front row spots. On a course like Land Park start positions aren't necessarily critical, but in some races they may be. In the least, the kids are forced to expend energy moving up after the start to better their position.
In some people's opinions, the new roll out rule handicaps the kids in adult races. If so, shouldn't we do our best not to handicap them further by pulling them out of the starting grid and relegating them to the back after they roll out?
I see two solutions: 1) roll them out well before riders start to que up for the start, or 2) roll them out immediately following the race. The first would require some advance planning, probably pulling an official off the line in a preceding race, the second would only require juniors who placed to be rolled out following the race. Either way, it would be nice to have a standard so the kids know what to expect and can plan for it.
I can see only rolling out juniors after a race to be inviting lots of problems.
1) How do you know you have all the juniors who were in the race. It seems the posting of results will be slowed down while the judges verify that the juniors in the race have been rolled out.
2) exactly how long after the race will juniors have to show up for roll out? Will they have to race through their cool down lap to get to roll out? If a junior really wanted to cheat how long would it take to block out their gears after the race with a little practice?
3) Of course every junior is going to be thinking about going straight to roll out after a long hard really hot race.
4) Of course if you only check after the race then there is no recourse if the rider fails but to DQ them. This will play well with the newer riders who don't know about or understand the rule. At least if your roll out before the race you have a chance to block the gears before the rider starts and still let them into the race.
More fuel for the fire.
http://list.obra.org/posts/obra/show/33403
I have to agree with Steve. I was lucky at Cal Aggie because I had adult friends on the front row saving my place, but one offensive adult was rather unhappy that I would dare line up next to him after being rolled out.
-David
Casey's points are well taken and make sense.
I would just ask that the officials are made aware that they should hold juniors' spots in the starting grid if they have to call them off the line, or better yet... if the grown ups decide to play nasty, put the kiddo's in the front row. Sort of their own little call up!
Last year I was amazed at how many juniors, especially those from larger junior teams, were failing roll outs before the start of junior races. By only rolling out the top juniors after the race you will not catch these juniors who for what ever reason have illegal gears. Unfortunately some people will tend to do the same thing ( use illegal gears) as long as they keep getting away with it. If for no other reason than education it is probably important to roll out juniors before all races for some time period until we start seeing only very few riders who fail rollout on a consistent basis.
Steve Wick's second option makes the most sense for a few reasons:
1) That's the procedure done at Nationals, except for the time trial
2) Rolling out the top ten finishers would be the fastest riders anyway
3) It doesn't delay the start of the race, especially for those who DON'T have to "block out" cogs.
The down side includes a top finisher who did NOT use his highest gear and hadn't blocked it beforehand, but then was disqualified for having illegal gearing (perhaps unaware of the rule--because juniors don't get issued rulebooks with their license or because he was a one day licensee).
Get used to it. Going to be plenty of times this year where Juniors get screwed over because of the rule. Not the officials or promoters fault as they have to enforce the rule.
Best thing to do is lobby to get the stupid rule removed...
THe problem with rolling juniors out well before the start of their race is they have plenty of time to go away and change gears before the start of the race. Rolling out juniors who place after the race means possible DQ'ing a junior who has placed well who may not even be aware of the gear restriction.
I can see for the juniors who are up near the front of the starting grid having an official keep an eye on their spot so that the juniors can come back to their original starting grid position. Of course if the adults don;t want to play nice and let the juniors have their original position back then the officials might just have to bring the junior to the front of the starting grid. Probably holding the original positions of the juniors who are already in the middle or back of the starting grid probably isn't worth the hassle but for the juniors in the front portion of the starting grid they should get their place back.