If you do 5 laps out of the 6 and pull out you get a DNF and lapped riders who have done less laps get finishing positions.
However, if you hang around at the finish line and walk over the line after the winner, you get a finishing position.
This is nothing to do with a fixation on keeping people on the hill, it’s a consequence of the timing system we use. It essentially DNF’s anyone who finishes before the winner as it assumes they are still on the course and haven’t finished.
As we are cheapskates and try and spend our money on better things (like the local MRT) and give all the sponsor stuff to the riders we are stuck with it for the moment. We put a lot of effort into making sure we have results on the day which are accurate. To date we have managed to do this thanks to the efforts of the all volunteer timing team who do a stressful job.
I know the organiser has the attitude “If you don’t like it don’t enter”
it’s more a come and help if you think you can do better, or if you want fund a posh system like those STW people who have a budget rather than a shoestring.
As explained above there’s not much we can do about the system and I’m not spending half a day converting DNF’s into minor places when I’ve a day job, a young family to see, and all the normal post race admin to do. (I am also aware that the policy of awarding places to people who don’t complete a race has led to some “unusual” results in races where licence points have been given to riders doing no more than a couple of laps.) If you want to join the team and take on the results service we’ll happily have a talk, our group is always open to people who want to get involved.
VERY LOUD EMAILS TO ANYONE WHO COMPLAINS
must have been a really bad day, normally I try and use lower case and capitalise normally 😉