[NCNCA] Mentored novice fields

[Casey Kerrigan]

In order to have a Cat 5 for women we would need USCF to change the  
rules to establish a Cat 5 for women. It has been brought up to the  
USCF Board of Trustees in the past two years and the proposal has gone  
down in flames due to lack of support from the vast majority of USCF  
Trustees, AS was pointed out in another post we are in a different  
world in terms of field sizes. Most of the rest of the country doesn't  
have nearly enough women to really justify 1/2/3 and 4 races much less  
a Cat 5 race.

Casey
On Feb 14, 2008, at 1:34 PM, soni andreini poulsen wrote:

>
> That reminds me....
>
> Has there been any thought to having a women's cat 5 again?  There  
> are always some fast cat 4s and it isn't an easy place for a brand  
> new racer to get started.  A cat 5 field would be less intimidating  
> for a band new racer.  Also, the "career 4s" would probably  
> appreciate having all the cat 4s to have the 10 required races under  
> their belts first.
>
> Soni Andreini Poulsen> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:21:03 -0800> From: jraphael at co.napa.ca.us 
> > To: ncnca at ncnca.org> Subject: [NCNCA] Mentored novice fields> >  
> Dan (and others):> > I agree with you whole-heartedly. The Early  
> Birds are a great program;> one that I've been proud to assist the  
> past few years. But the Birds are> not enough. We - the racers, the  
> promoters, the officials - should do> everything we can to improve  
> the safety of the peloton, especially in> crits. > > Thus, in  
> previous years two of the crits with which I was associated> (Cherry  
> Pie '07 and Albany '06) offered mentored M5 and W4 fields. The>  
> response was mixed -- mostly very positive, but with some negative,  
> most> of which had to do with fact that many racers in the W4  
> category have> been racing a long time and may not need mentoring.>  
> > But mostly the novice racers really dig the guidance. And it was  
> not> hard to get really good mentors to sign up. (We offered a free  
> entry> fee, but I suspect they'd have done it anyway). > > I agree  
> completely that mens' 5's should not be mixed with "competitive">  
> (i.e. prized) fields.> > But here are two practical problems:> > 1.  
> The womens' novices can't realistically be treated the same way.>  
> There are "career 4's" among the women who should be entitled to  
> race> for prizes.> > > 2. Most of the 5's who are into becoming  
> racers do their training races> at the beginning of the season, so a  
> Cat 5 category really isn't> necessary at all in the later months.  
> They'd have very small numbers if> they were offered. Of course,  
> that puts the spring races at a> disadvantage - especially a race  
> like Cherry Pie that has a short race> day anyway.> > >  
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