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Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 13th 03, 11:43 PM
Phil, Squid-in-Training
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

"Nate" wrote in message
om...
Ah yes. Once again it was time for the 24 hours of Snowshoe. Mud,
roots and pain. I love this race. And this year was no exception,
however....

I organized a team to race Co-ed pro/am but decided to jump over to 5
person open since there was no competition in pro/am. Pam and I had
never ridden with any other riders on this years team, so we wondered
what we were in for. Everyone seemed to be pretty fast, or so they
said : )

I had noticed a few days before the race that a team racing under the
name West Virginia Homegrown had raced in the Expert Class the
previous year (named Hammerheads) and finished 4th out of 23 teams.
This year they had the same team plus one guy's wife. In the 5 person
open, your team may have 1 expert male (no more), at least 1 female,
and any other males must be sport riders. So I e-mailed Laird Knight
of this situation. The response was: We will bring this to their
attention.

At the race, the course was actually quite dry this year and more
rideable for many. We entered our team under the name Pray for Rain,
mainly to **** off those with no sense of humor.

During the race, things went as good as could be expected. We had
one very fast rider, myself and another guy were about the same
speed, and my g/f Pam and another very fast woman. Our mechanic
swapped the rear wheel between my bike and Pam's each lap, (I trashed
my crossmax the week before) and swapped eggbeaters between the other
rider's bikes as Stuart's broke right before his lap. Our second lady
was putting on make-up before her laps as if to hook up with some stud
on the trail. She showed up to her first lap without her scan-in card
but with some other team's baton!?!?! WTF??? She put out fast lap
times, so I didn't care about anything else.

During the race, the W.Va. Homegrown team was in the lead (of our
class) the whole race. No surprise there. So during the last hour of
the race, I personally found Laird and talked to him about the
sandbagging situation. He told me that the team right behind us in
3rd was going to protest the Homegrown team until they found out they
too could be DQ'd for sand bagging, so they withdrew their protest.
So I paid the $50 and put in the protest against W.Va. Homegrown.
Laird said to make it fair, I may as well file a protest against the
3rd place team too. Even though they weren't beating us, I figured
it was only fair.

After talking to the other teams under protest, Laird was somewhat
feeling guilty for not doing something about this situation before the
race, so the Homegrown team could at least switch classes or modify
their team. So after lots of controversy, (and the Homegrown team
protesting us) Laird decided to keep the final results as final.

Laird knew he screwed up pretty bad and decided to give our team extra
prizes to try to quell our anger. He even offered to refund our
team's entry fee, but I felt that was too much -- I can be a softy
sometimes. We know Laird and Elizabeth and didn't want to be complete
jerks about the situation...

At the podium, Laird apologized for the situation involving the 5
person open category to the crowd. We shook hands with the 3rd place
team and took our spot on 2nd place. When W.Va. Homegrown was called
up, mutterings of "sandbaggers" and the such were heard around. Only
2 of their riders shook our hands before hopping onto the podium.
Their team was told to consider themselves experts in the future.

Even though the ending results were jacked, we all had a good race
and some fun to boot. For all those who skipped out this year for
fear of too much unrideable mud, you guys missed out. And believe
me, there were still plenty of slick technical sections for the
sickos (myself included) who like it hard.

If I am still here come next year, Pam and I will surely be there
again. Damn, this is a great race.


Cool race report. What's sandbagging? And what exactly did they do wrong
again? They had more than one expert?

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training


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  #2  
Old July 14th 03, 01:34 AM
Slacker
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

Cool race report. What's sandbagging? And what exactly did they do wrong
again? They had more than one expert?

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training



Sandbagging = Racing in a division that you're too good for when you should be in the next division (or two) up.
--
Slacker


  #3  
Old July 14th 03, 08:04 AM
JD
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

(Nate) wrote in message . com...
snip

Lard is a bungwad.

JD
  #4  
Old July 14th 03, 02:24 PM
Rich
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

big snip

Sandbagging really sucks. A few years ago some buddies and I entered a
12 hour race in GA as beginners. We were all borderline beginner/sport
riders but none of us had ever done a multi hour event so we figured
beginner class would be about right. We had an unusually good race (no
mishaps whatsoever) on a day were it seemed everyone else was having
problems. We ended pounding the entire beginner *and* sport class, and
actually placed in the top 5 of the experts. We felt really guilty
about it and everyone was calling us sandbaggers. We even tried to get
the race organizers to move us up to expert class with no luck.

Anyway, I don't know how someone could do it intentionally. We all felt
like we were ruining everyone elses race and it really made it hard for
us to enjoy the otherwise fun race.

  #5  
Old July 14th 03, 02:30 PM
Kathleen
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

Slacker wrote:
Cool race report. What's sandbagging? And what exactly did they do wrong
again? They had more than one expert?

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training




Sandbagging = Racing in a division that you're too good for when you should be in the next division (or two) up.


In flyball, we handle that situation by establishing a breakout time
based on the seed times submitted by each team. Once the divisions are
sorted out, the breakout time for each division is set at one second
faster than the fastest seed time submitted for that division. If your
team runs faster than that, you lose that heat (and any title points you
might have earned). Do it three times in a day and your team is
automatically DQ'ed from placement in your division. Only in division 1
- the fastest division - is there no breakout time.
If you do a bad job of calculating your seed times, or have to sub in a
faster dog, you wind up having to hold your passes to avoid breaking
out. Not only is it not fun, it's really hard to do, as the dogs will
speed up to try to make up for your slow releases (yes, they know it's a
race).
So I assume that there's nothing like a "breakout" provision in 24 hour
races?

Kathleen


  #6  
Old July 14th 03, 04:31 PM
Phil, Squid-in-Training
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

out. Not only is it not fun, it's really hard to do, as the dogs will
speed up to try to make up for your slow releases (yes, they know it's a
race).


Flyball? Dog racing? Sledding? What is it?

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training


  #7  
Old July 14th 03, 04:32 PM
Phil, Squid-in-Training
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

Anyway, I don't know how someone could do it intentionally. We all felt
like we were ruining everyone elses race and it really made it hard for
us to enjoy the otherwise fun race.


To solve the problem, everyone should enter expert.

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training


  #8  
Old July 14th 03, 08:28 PM
Tom Purvis
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

"Slacker" wrote:
What's sandbagging? And what exactly did they do wrong
again? They had more than one expert?


Sandbagging = Racing in a division that you're too good
for when you should be in the next division (or two) up.


The term sandbagging comes from road racing.

As I've heard it, the idea is for two elite riders to enter
a race in a too-low category. They draw straws to see who
the winner will be and agree to split the winnings. When
they show up to the race, they don't know each other--or
even pretend to be old enemies who are likely to have a
fist fight.

The one who is supposed to win takes the lead immediately.

The other one situates himself right in front of the pack
of the remaining racers. Into every corner he jams on his
brakes, forcing the whole pack to slow down as slow as he
does. But he uses his superior sprinting skills to shoot
off out of the corners, keeping anybody from passing him
(because he's really fast enough to just drop the whole
group and chase after his secret buddy, who's off the
front).

He acts like a sandbag, keeping the pack from having any
chance of catching the guy out front.

Strategies like that don't really pan out in off-road
racing, so the term is simply used to refer to somebody
who enters a too-easy category to collect more prizes,
boost his self-esteem, or simply prove he's an asshole.
--
Tom Purvis
Salida, CO - http://www.arkansasvalley.net/tpurvis/
  #9  
Old July 14th 03, 08:49 PM
Rich
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote:
Anyway, I don't know how someone could do it intentionally. We all felt
like we were ruining everyone elses race and it really made it hard for
us to enjoy the otherwise fun race.



To solve the problem, everyone should enter expert.


Or just don't give out prizes, race for fun.

  #10  
Old July 14th 03, 08:57 PM
Stephen Baker
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Default Jipped at Snowshoe (24 hrs of..that is)

Team BFD says:

The term sandbagging comes from road racing.


BS - the term comes from sailing, where a sandbag hidden under the deck gives
you more stability (assuming you remember to switch it to the other side when
you tack) and therefore you win the race due to superior speed.
The idea was so popular that a class of boats called "Sandbaggers" was created
and raced in the mid-1800's, mostly around NY and NJ, using up to a half-ton of
sand in bags that had to be shifted each tack.
.. For those of you who have been to South Street Seaport, there should be one
sitting on the dock somewhere, called "Sandy", IIRC, unless they have allowed
it to rot away again.

Steve
 




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