Downtown St. Paul Crit (Stage 1, Wed 6/11)

Have you ever had a day where you just wanted to throw in the towel and give it up altogether? This stage ended up being a disaster. It had been pouring rain before the race started, and while it slowed down to a drizzle, the hilly streets combined with what ended up being too many vehicles (a pace car and several motorefs) made it very hectic and difficult to deal with.

The women's race happened first. With the chancy conditions, almost half of the field got pulled before the race was even half over! Although the race finished, the ultimately unpopular decision was to nullify the results in the GC, because of how many were pulled from the race.

When the men's race started, the rain started coming down again. By the fifth or sixth lap, they were already pulling large groups of riders — but what really messed everything up was the fact that one group didn't come out when pulled... As a matter of fact, they didn't come out three laps in a row! And then one of the motorefs went down in a corner, so the race got neutralized. The Chief Ref ended up asking them if they wanted to continue or cancel the stage. Of course the majority of the racers didn't want to continue, and boy were the managers of the teams who were winning when it happened upset.

In this case, I really admired both of the CR's for their skill in handling the racers and team managers under the difficult circumstances. I should point out that the men's and women's races each had their own crew of officials. For the crits and time trial, everyone worked together, but the Chief Ref and Chief Judge focused on their own part of the race, while giving support to their counterparts.

What lesson did I learn? Safety first and foremost.

Nature Valley Grand Prix

I just spent five gorgeous days in and around Minneapolis/St. Paul, learning new skills as an official, and generally making friends. To keep this shorter, I'm going to write a little about each stage in separate posts. But here are some general comments:

At every single major race I attend, I learn at least 3-5 new techniques (minimum!) for ways to do different things. This race wasn't any different. Did you know that the chief judge at a pro stage race, no matter how large, will take the time to do a paper backup of ALL the results, so that if the computer crashes, they still know who won?

The first time you go to a national-level event will be the hardest one to get in on the crew with. You should expect it to be something you do at your own expense, and eventually you'll get the invitation to be on the paid crew!

And if you have any questions about anything I'm writing here, please write comments or an email!! I'm trying to edit myself down to a manageable length of each post, so I may leave out a few details. I have a lot more to say, believe me!

All I can say is "wow!"

Being at the track here in Minneapolis this weekend was simply amazing. I felt like all of the road officiating I've done just barely scratch the surface of preparation for the skills required to understand and 'keep up with' track events. In several races, I simply had to give up trying, and ended up just watching.

The races run at this event were all very fast, with the fastest lap time at under 12 seconds, and the slowest at around 20-30 seconds........... can you imagine trying to score like in a crit?

The points race was the hardest -- it is so difficult to keep up with the points *and* keep track of the race.

The Madison was the most fascinating — even with only 7 teams, it seemed like complete chaos to me.

And the fastest race was a flying 200m time trial... Riders get 3 laps, 2 to get up to speed, and 1 to sprint. There was an Italian rider who was phenomenal, and set the track record yesterday.

I love my stopwatch!

I purchased my latest stopwatch at SportsCounters.com, and I really love it. It is an Ultrak 499, and yes, I did buy the printer. I also got some extra paper while I was at it, and the software that can be purchased, but I haven't gotten that to work yet. Altogether, I spent a large portion of what I made at a recent race, but it has already proved to be a worthwhile investment!

"But Margretta," you ask, "why do you need another stopwatch?"
It's funny you should ask...

When I was at Joe Martin, the Chief Judge had two of her own printing stopwatches, and it was not the promoter's responsibility to provide any of that. There was also photo finish equipment, and the promoter was paying for that, but none of the timing equipment was his. This made an impression on me, and I thought that I should probably consider this as my next personal equipment investment.

Then, I was at another race recently, and when I inquired as to the status of the stopwatches for the race that was scheduled for the following weekend, I got a curt response about the fact that the promoter had not made any arrangements, so no, they wouldn't be there. To be honest, I thought this was kind of rude, since I was asking from the standpoint of being a judge at another race, and the printing stopwatches are SO nice to have.

So, that kind of clinched it for me. If I want to be self sufficient, then I ought to go for it, and spend the money. (Did you think being an official is about the money? No way!)

The next question was... what kind of stopwatch should I buy? When I started doing a search for printing stopwatches in Google, this Ultrak 499 was very high on the list of hits. The other version is the Seiko that we've all seen or used — Jim has one, and Roger has two, and they all end up at a lot of races. I really like the Seiko, since it is all one piece, but I ended up getting the Ultrak because it was a) cheaper, and b) an opportunity to try something different. As you can see in the photo, the printer is at the end of a nice long cord.

This is a little unwieldy at first, but the two times I've been using it, it has actually come in very handy. The first time, Sherri H. was using it as CJ at the Jesse Blancarte time trial, and I was standing next to her with the printer in my hand writing down the splits. The second time, I was CJ at the Capps-Rebound TT the following weekend, and as I was hitting the stopwatch, Curtis was able to do the data entry on the computers without needing me to read the times to him...

So, to make a long story short, this was a great investment, and I really do love my new stopwatch!

Getting Started!

I've recently been thinking about different ways that I can personally help new/other USA Cycling officials to gain insight and information about being an official. This is sort of along the lines of the mentoring program that we've talked about setting up in Kansas, but I'd like to let people choose to read, instead of flooding their email inbox every time something cool happens!

With that in mind, I'm going to paste my commentary here about officiating at the Joe Martin Stage Race in Fayetteville, Arkansas this May:

I would like to take a few minutes to tell you about the really amazing experience I had as an official at the Joe Martin Stage Race two weekends ago in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I had contacted George Heagarty, our Regional Coordinator, to let him know that I wanted to get on the crew for a national-level event, and he put my name on a list for this race. Curtis Martell also went to officiate at this race.

Just a little background info: I've been to one other "NRC" race -- that is a national road calendar race for the Pro teams, and volunteered at the two national championship events that were in Kansas last year. All three of those events were eye-openers for me, but this weekend and Joe Martin really solidified my enthusiasm, and I'd like to share some of that with you. I apologize for the length here, but will admit that this is pretty pared down from how I could go on and on about it!

There was a huge amount of prep work that went into this race. The CR was Dot Abbott, an International Commissaire from Washington (state). She coordinated a schedule for 20 officials that could adequately cover all of the requirements of judging, rolling enclosures for the two Pro groups, and covering all of the USCF category events. I was also amazed by the amount of work that went into getting results posted, and fixing problems. I put myself at the beck and call of Bonnie Walker, the CJ, and basically did all of the massive clerical stuff while she kept working on fixing problems that kept us in the work room until 11 p.m. or longer every day. I was really greatful that our local events don't require so much post-race work, let me tell you!

On Thursday, I was an AJ for the Pros and Men 1/2 at the time trial. I felt pretty successful, since I was within a few hundredths of Bonnie's times on almost every rider. I learned that it is possible to judge a TT from an angle -- you just have to know how to look at it (and that took just a few riders over the line).

On Friday, I was Comm 3 for the Men 1/2 race. This basically meant I was almost the last car in our race caravan, watching to make sure we kept track of riders falling off the back, or coming back up to rejoin the group, and stayed behind with the guy who crashed with a head injury until he was into the ambulance. Oh yeah, did I mention that the tail end of the race behind me was an ambulance and 1-2 sherriffs or state troopers, depending on where we were? Those lights and sirens helped me get caught back up to the race!

Saturday, I felt lucky to be entrusted with the Comm1 position with the Men 5. Of course, they were next to last to start, so I missed some of the major action at the finish line ahead of us (Curtis told me that it was too fast to score mass sprints on the downhill finish). In the afternoon, I was the Asst CR for the beginning of the USCF category TT. Dot had to complete some work relating to the crashes that happened at the AM road race, so I was in the unenviable position of having to figure out whether or not we would be affected by the major weather going through. We were really lucky, and all the bad weather was doen by the time we started, began again after we were done, and was mostly just north of us, or just south of us... How much better could it get?

And on Sunday, I scored, and scored, and scored. In the morning, I scored from the wrong side while manning the check-in tables, and then I went to the stage to score the Pro Men, Pro Women, and Men 1/2. Bonnie asked me to stay beyond the end of my assigned duties for the day, because she felt that if I were there, she would feel more comfortable walking away from the scoring table, if necessary. What an honor! Now, if I'd been down in the wheel pit, Curtis tells me I missed some great racing at the bottom of the hill...

I learned other things, too, in the course of the weekend, such as how to measure a bike to check compliance with UCI standards (pro time trial bikes, in this case), how to be a part of a race caravan, and really, how much more I have to learn!

Last but not least, I would like to encourage everyone to look into this sort of opportunity, even if you just do it for a day. Working with National and International Commissaires will give you a chance to learn great techniquest from Experts. And as Dot pointed out, in 20+ years of officiating, she did not get to be in a race caravan until 5-6 years ago, and it is a whole different kind of race experience.

It is hard to convey just how much I got out of this race experience, even in this "short" space. If you are interested in hearing more about it, I'll be happy to share more. Thanks for taking the time to read this!