Paul,
I miss having the Omnium you guys did two years ago with the Diablo TT.

I know it was a ton of work to run both races, but if there is ever any talk of doing it again, I am SOOO there.

Cheers,
Ron

Thanks for all the support everyone! It's good to hear people like our event. I hated that hairpin at first, but grew to love it after awhile.

We've promoted the Lafayette Criterium with some success for the past few years on or about this same weekend so we were disappointed when Spring Hill put their race on "our" date. To their credit, they contacted us early to let us know in hopes of maybe working something out in terms of categories offered, etc., but there really wasn't a lot we could have done differently at that point. I bet Spring Hill's race probably suffered from the double booking as well.

I have spoken with the NCNCA board about it, and as Casey mentioned there are some sanctions when this happens for clubs that don't attend the planning meeting. I wasn't aware of that. But maybe they need to be more stringent to really discourage scheduling issues since it doesn't help anyone. Our numbers were significantly down from last year (~20%) and that really hurts our bottom line.

After a long day Sunday I'm too exhausted to think about 2009's event. But if you have comments or suggestions, feel free to post them on this forum or email: info@c4racing.org.

Thanks,

Paul Carter

KevinMetcalfe wrote:Now to the negative portion of this post...

I've got to give a shout down to whoever allowed this race to be scheduled on the same day as the Lafayette Crit.

Good downtown crits are few and far between. They are expensive and difficult to promote and should be encouraged.

Not to mention being scheduled against the Cascade Classic as well. Tough tough weekend.

I just want to say to the promoters of Lafayette that I HOPE they are not discouraged from continuing the race next year. I know that (some of) the local businesses probably create a lot of pressure about this (and any) downtown crit. But Lafayette is one of the jewels of the NCNCA schedule and we have to do what we can to protect it.

Town races are a huge hassle, but they really bring our sport to the community in the most accessible and exciting way. I would guess that the majority of crit racers got turned on by the excitement of watching a downtown crit before they ever strapped on their own crash gear. And nothing is better PR for the sport than kids' races.

WE, THE RACERS, CAN HELP THE PROMOTERS OF THESE GREAT RACES!! How?

** PATRONIZE LOCAL MERCHANTS! LET THEM KNOW THAT YOU'RE THERE FOR THE RACE!

** PREREGISTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially you all in the categories that never pre-register!! You are causing promoters a hell of a lot of anxiety!

** TREAT THESE DOWNTOWN RACES AS AN HONOR, NOT A PRIVILEGE!! Help out the promoters. Clean up your trash. Try not to block the sidewalks with your trainers. Hell, hang out for a half-hour after the race and help with tear-down. It wouldn't kill you to roll up some fencing.

We all know what a pleasure these Downtown races are ... few of us realize what a huge hassle they are to promote. We're all in this together, so Z-Man says "Let's do it Andy Hardy style!!"

Kevin - As I always point out to promoters at the scheduling meeting there are very limited situations when a race permit application can be denied. As long as there are enough officials available and there aren't any other rare conditions a race permit application can't be denied if a promoter insists on having a certain race on a certain date. In this case there were enough officials for both Spring Hill and Lafayette so there wasn't grounds to deny a permit.

NCNCA has adopted a policy to try and discourage one race to move onto the date of another race if the race who was on that date first doesn't agree to the second race also happening on that date ( adding on extra fees, not counting the race for BAR/BAT points and giving the other race first priority on race equipment) but ultimately if a promoter is determined to have a race on a certain day there really isn't much that can be done to prevent it.

I agree with everything that Peter said. I've done this race in the past and it is a great race.

Now to the negative portion of this post...

I've got to give a shout down to whoever allowed this race to be scheduled on the same day as the Lafayette Crit.

Good downtown crits are few and far between. They are expensive and difficult to promote and should be encouraged. Putting another good race against Lafayette took money from both promoters. I have no idea of the numbers involved, but at best Lafayette made little to no money and in the worst case they lost a ton. If they did lose money, the C4 guys might be a little gun shy about promoting this race next year.

That would be a shame.

Thanks.

Kevin Metcalfe