Wow...I feel like I'm being told to quit racing or slow down. I'm Semi-Pro and without being in that category, you wouldn't catch me at a National or large scale race. Why? Because practice in Expert Class SUCKS! This sport isn't motocross where if there is a 48 year old expert on the track with a 30 year old expert, you can just take the outside line and blow by. I saw Amateur practice at the Open and it looked like a parade lap coming out onto the fire road. Riders spaced 30 feet apart one after another like cattle to water.
In Semi-Pro, I'm 35, can ride the big stuff, can keep up with pros, not tie up anybody, take full runs, scope lines with peers and get in as many runs as possible. Come race time, I go head to head with guys all on the same skill level with me.
Put me in expert and I get to spend 2 hours with my tire behind 10 other guys waiting to ride a 30 yard section of roots, not pedal a lick, coast, brake, stop, repeat.
Understand that I have no beef with the skill level in Expert, but the bottom line is me and the majority of my riding buddies have NO business in Expert Class where we'd be called Sandbaggers. And I'm not pretending to be a pro either. You can call Semi-Pro a wanna be class all you like, but bottom line is it is a darn big pool of very fast riders with a select few looking to move up to Pro. Take away Semi-pro at a large event, and you can have it. I'll go shuttle.
At the US Open, with 150 guys in Pro, we had one choke point at the off camber slab, but by in large, we weren't tying each other up. The horror stories I heard of in AM though made me sick.
But by all means, move categories all you want. Until you make a legitimate pro purse a requirement for those promoters with all their fancy timing and brand new hats and shirts, the Nats are dead to me and all those other fanboys. It's a joke until the pros get paid...and not just gas money. I'm talking top 20 pro payout with 20th able to cover the bulk of their airfare.
Anybody besides me remember a payout that looke like this:
1. 10k
2 6k
3. 5k
4 2k
5. 1k
6. 700
7. 600
8. 500
9. 400
10. 300
11-20. 250 each.
Honestly Todd, I'm a monster proponent of Nationals, but not til the pros get their jobs back. 90% of DHers will never see the pro podium or have a shot at getting paid at a Nat. But they all "aspire" or dream of it...and to see their heroes and idols get squat is a disservice and slap in the face of that other 90%. They won't support a series that won't pay their pros.