[N8 v2.0]

Dirt Rag Article Archive
Grassroots and Shoestrings
By Ray Easterling

It is a gray and unseasonably cool May morning in 2002. The sun has yet to find this little valley nestled in the Blue Ridge that provides the start for today’s race, The Middle Mountain Momma. It’s not yet 8a.m., but race organizer Kyle Inman has already been on the job since first light.

This dance of race preparation and execution is one Inman has come to know well in his decade-long tenure as director of the Virginia Mountain Bike Championship Race Series. It’s a personal routine performed similarly on various anonymous weekends by many race organizers across the country. These last few hours and minutes before the start of an event are the climax of months of preparation, planning and perseverance. While tens of thousands race mountain bikes each year, it is truly a preciously small clutch of people who ensure these events ever come into being at all.


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[Westy]

I've raced both Kyle and Dan's series in the article. I think Dan is completely out of the racing now and Kyle is only putting on a limited series. We have some of the best possible race venues around here it just seems few people are interested anymore.

 

[blue]

“I was with NORBA for, oh, I guess about ten years. The NORBA thing got to the point that, I mean, my racers didn’t want it,” said Ed Chauner, owner of the Intermountain Cup Mountain Bike Racing Series in Utah. “The question every time was ‘Why do I have to buy a license? What good is this doing me?’ and I said, ‘Well, I agree. You’re the customer and we’re going to do what you want.’

“From a promoter’s point of view, there was a lot of extra work and it seemed like we were writing some pretty big checks out to them. We really couldn’t see the returns from that. As a grassroots promoter, you really have to look at the bottom line and there was nothing that was coming in that was really helping me from NORBA,” Chauner said. The Intermountain Cup is now in its third season without NORBA. “But really, I listen to my racers. When my racers come to me and say…you should be in NORBA, I will do it. But for right now, my numbers have increased tremendously since leaving NORBA.”

Down with NORBA! Chauner's series is pretty damned good. I believe he hauled me to the ER when I got a concussion in a race last year, but I can't exactly remember. He's a great guy, and our local series, the Intermountain Cup, seems to have a stable number of racers, I have not noticed any massive decline since I started racing a couple years ago. The proliferation of private venues in Utah really helps out, though, racing on public land is a big pain in the ass.

 

[N8 v2.0]

We've ditched NORBA sanction here locally as well. We get our insurance thru McKay's since we are an IMBA affiliated club.

There was a huge amount of hassle and no advantage to NORBA.

 

[Westy]

We've ditched NORBA sanction here locally as well. We get our insurance thru McKay's since we are an IMBA affiliated club.

There was a huge amount of hassle and no advantage to NORBA.

Do you have large turnouts at races? We have only 1 area NORBA race and it had a great turnout last year despite very cold weather. Other non-Norba races seem to have much smaller attendance.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Do you have large turnouts at races? We have only 1 area NORBA race and it had a great turnout last year despite very cold weather. Other non-Norba races seem to have much smaller attendance.

Are a small time here... I don't think NORBA sanction would increase turn out at all.