Hillingdon Tuesday night 3/4 Races: Nil Point

[Toks]

[quote]Organiser Stuart Benstead:

"Prizes, but no points. We regard the present BC rules to be unsafe as an inexperienced but strong rider can win his first race from a small field and go up to then race in the E/1/2/3 field and be dangerous to himsef and all others."

[EdO]

It was pretty bad up there last year Toks. It seemed like there was at least one crash every week - certainly the times I went anyway. Credit to Rogan who managed to both score points and stay upright.

[Toks]

[quote="EdO"]It was pretty bad up there last year Toks. It seemed like there was at least one crash every week - certainly the times I went anyway. Credit to Rogan who managed to both score points and stay upright.

[Andrew G]

I can see where Stuart's coming from, although is it not 4th cat only races and not 3/4 races on Tuesday's he's referring to? I think it was last year he mentioned to my Dad last year the number of stupid crashes in the Tuesday racing, at a dinner they were both at.

Personally with the current category system I think having E/1/2/3 races is more the problem. As he said a novice can do one race in a small field and have a bit of a sprint and go straight to 3rd cat, next race turn up and race in the same field as top riders. Personally I think only having E/1/2s is better then you can have 2/3, 3rds only, 3/4 races for point scoring, have 4th cat only races as ways of starting out and gaining experience. If a rider is good enough to deserve being at a certain category then they'll still get there, but it would increase the chance of novices having to have raced a certain number of times before they are in amongst 2nd cats. You could always have a minimum number of races having to be done at 4th cat ruling but that would an admin headache and a half.

Handicaps would still have 4ths in with higher categories but I don't recall hearing about the same crash issues in them.

A couple of pence thrown on the table .

[Daniel Gee]

[quote]Handicaps would still have 4ths in with higher categories but I don't recall hearing about the same crash issues in them.

[Rogan]

Thanks Ed. It took me a while to get those points though.

There has been quite a lot of comment in Cycling Weekly about crash rates last season at Hillingdon. A few observations:

Andrew's idea would improve things dramatically at Hillingdon - but I doubt there's the time/volunteers (don't know if the marshals are paid?) to run the extra events. As it is the 1/2/3's race at the same time as the 4th's who set off about a minute apart.

There was a crash about once every two weeks in the 4th cats last year (some nastier than others) and in my only race in the 3/2/1's a few riders came down pretty hard as a pit-bull was (seemingly) let lose into the pack! Pot luck that one.

I noticed that some of the (very talented) and very young riders from academy teams like Rapha hold their riders back from the 3/2/1's to get 'winning' experience. And so these capable youngsters gain crit experience but put in such big turns within the last few laps that it leaves other 4th cats racing for 20th place and almost passing out in the process (i.e. I agree with a Cycling weekly comment of a few weeks ago). Some riders were simply falling off the pace in the home straight and causing accidents.

4th Cat riders can simply turn up and race without any experience at all. It might help to educate the 4th's on racing etiquette - even 5 mins before every race. I saw some races where the 4th's didn't even get out of the way of the 3/2/1's... plain stupid or just ignorant?!

[Mark F]

At Longcross a couple of weeks ago we had four laps training - initially four small groups of say 15 for two laps and then two medium groups of 30 for two laps before all 60 of us headed out for the 4th Cat Race. There were at least a couple of spills - one in the small groups training and one on lap 2 of the race - though it was very wet. There were a few Dynamos out providing some policing and guidance to the bunch and when it came to overtaking the 3W/4W I think they stayed out of our way under the guidance of a Dynamo. To a newbie it seemed well organised, but having ridden Hillingdon I'm sure with 60 of us on the tight right hander there would have been every chance of a major stack.

M