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Experience w/ Midwest Cafe Racing Association


ohdaho

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^true, I know nesba does have a quicker A than most orgs.

they used to. Before they let me in. :D

I've never ridden in Advanced at Putnam. I would if I went back. But yeah, putting the race school in with the novices was a monumentally dumb thing for the MCRA to do...

Sounds like they were making a lot of dumb decisions that weekend.

But I do struggle with where the proper place for the race school is. As noted, there was one rider in the mock race doing :17's (if he had a 21 on the front of his bike, I know that rider is capable of :14's). I'm sure there were others who were over the 1:30 mark.

When there's that big of a range of pace in the same race school, you can't safely put all of them in ANY group.

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Ill have to wait to get home and see video, but can't wait to see that.

Watching the race from the guardrail was pretty sick Sunday, glad I didn't Saturday though so I could see the finish from the top of the bank and see Grey's tire just pass Chimmy.

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My take on CR's being "above the rules."

first: I think the org should make it ABUNDANTLY clear during the riders' meeting what each group's passing rules are, and what rules apply or don't apply to control riders. I also think part of control riding is traffic management, and slower riders may need to be pulled off the race line (on straights) and faster guys waved by in some cases, to speed up the process and make everyone's session a bit better.

I am of the opinion that CR's should lead by example whenever possible.

...but I think they should be technically "above the law" for a number of reasons, and at their RESTRAINED discretion.

That should be for teaching purposes though, or for tracking down riders on larger bikes. Safety is always #1, then teaching is #2, and fun is #3. Occasionally, #'s 2 and 3 can swap. Just depends on the individual rider's goals for the day. Some people love tooling around in Intermediate and just have a ball riding and an intermediate pace.

That's hard for a lot of people (me) to wrap our heads around, but there's nothing wrong with it as long as they're being safe.

Sounds like the Indy Ducati people have it right, but the MCRA "instructors" were breaking rule #1 :nono:

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The guy on the zx-6r was walking away from the field, he finished well in front of everyone else.

did he have an orange "C" sticker on his front fender?

(actually, I think Jeff got new paint this winter, and NESBA folded their midwest region, so he probably doesn't. But if it was a green kawasaki with black cow spots, it's the same guy)

That's the problem. There was no reason for him to be in the race school in the first place. Sit him down, go over starting procedures and flags, send him out in Advanced, and have him take the written test at lunch. There. Race license approved.

No reason to have him in "novice," or have instructors wasting their time "helping" him.

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Yea, there was no teaching going on from MCRA, they were just there for track time.

I think some of the MCRA cr's were playing by the rules as I know Monger and a few others were watching out but the dude with the dreds was doing as he wanted along with others that I have never seen before.

I know if I know the person or if they are running super quick in I, I will talk to them first and they start making some A passes to get them ready.

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did he have an orange "C" sticker on his front fender?

(actually, I think Jeff got new paint this winter, and NESBA folded their midwest region, so he probably doesn't. But if it was a green kawasaki with black cow spots, it's the same guy)

That's the problem. There was no reason for him to be in the race school in the first place. Sit him down, go over starting procedures and flags, send him out in Advanced, and have him take the written test at lunch. There. Race license approved.

No reason to have him in "novice," or have instructors wasting their time "helping" him.

Yes, green with white cow spots.

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they used to. Before they let me in. :D

I've never ridden in Advanced at Putnam. I would if I went back. But yeah, putting the race school in with the novices was a monumentally dumb thing for the MCRA to do...

Sounds like they were making a lot of dumb decisions that weekend.

But I do struggle with where the proper place for the race school is.

If I remember correctly from my one event at Little Tally with Ed Bargy/X-act, Bargy breaks the sessions into 15 minutes in the morning and the race school guys go out and do their track walks and such. After lunch, I believe the race guys go out with A and the sessions are back to 20.

Anyway, whatever Bargy did, it was better than MCRA.

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I have never seen a race school in novice. At a minimum they are run in I but MCRA said I was full so they had to do N as they did last year. First off I should account for the race school students when signing up so the cap of X# of riders is both together, it's not that hard.

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Yeah the AFJ thread was unreal, I am guessing they are reading this thread too and already gave up. Since about 10-15 people that were there are also on these boards, I'd assume that they lost another decent number of riders. Especially those of us who all ride multiple days, tracks, and organizations through the year.

Really an unfortunate situation, especially knowing MS will be nothing like that this weekend at Nelson.

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I havent read this whole thread but I will say that the MCRA event was a bit unorganized and was way overbooked. Also running a race clinic in the novice group is not really a great idea IMHO. Having said that both days seemed to go ok with very few incidents. It seemed there were very few first timers. On the other hand it seemed in all classes but advanced traffic was literally stacking up like a free way traffic jam at the bus stop. I suppose I'm spoiled by orgs like stt and typical Ducati Indy days where instructions are clear and there is never over booking.

Non the less I know the guys at Ducati Indy were not excited about how it all went down. They are more used to the way they run things with commonwealth. Less people and more oriented towards safety and learning. Sometimes I bring a bike to the events I photograph and ride a little. In retrospect I was fine with missing this one. I

Either way the actual guys at MCRA seemed like very good down to earth guys, I wasn't real happy to get double booked with their photographer (add that to the frustrating cluster) but him and I talked and were able to be cool working side by side. all I can say is please don't anyone think this is a typical Ducati Indy day. It's not. I was at every one of their days last year and they run a top class show and I truly believe Bill and Matt won't let the MCRA days in September go down like this.

Btw. Photos are up at electriceyeimages.com.

Edited by vw151
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What's this turd burglar looking at?

http://www.abi-photo.com/p578607095/h2a768c20#h154517c8

I think it is cute you two used the same zip tye on your suits...

You should be called "Red Zip Tye Racing".

Fags.:D

I think I was looking for a place to pull off and pray that I make it through the weekend alive. I did, barely.

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