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3-2-1 Omnium For “Fast Dudes” At Massanutten U.S. Cup
Wed Jun 9, 2010
Source: Press Release
CONSHOHOCKEN, PA - U.S. Cup’s H2O Overdrive Triple Crown presented by Specialized wraps-up its inaugural season with a two-day mountain bike race at the 22nd Annual “HOO HA!” at Virginia’s Massanutten Resort on June 19-20. And, while Sunday’s cross country race is a big event in its own right, the brass ring (and all of the prize money) for the money racers is the final overall classification of the weekend’s Triple Crown off-road Omnium that also includes Saturday’s Short Track and Super D. “Think three, two, one,” says George Willetts, Mountain Bike Manager at Massanutten Resort and promoter of the HOO HA!. “The idea is you race three events, use your best two finishes as your final score, and only pay one entry fee. It’s like a stage race, but using points instead of time.”
The Triple Crown’s omnium format provides a financial safety-net for riders that U.S. Cup’s Ty Kady refers to as “privateers”: fast racers who need to win prize money to offset their expenses because their racing programs are primarily self-financed. “With traditional events, you only have one chance each weekend to recoup your expenses,” explains Willetts. “If you flat at the wrong time, you finish out of the money. Do it a couple races in a row, and you won’t have enough money to make it to the next race. At a Triple Crown race like our HOO HA!, a good Short Track or Super D result can mitigate a problem in the Cross Country and keep you in the prize money. Plus, Triple Crown events pay back further than most races. We want to get the 61 Triple Crown entries we need so we can pay out the full $10,000 in prize money paying back 30 places.”
Willetts also appreciated the flexibility that the Triple Crown format offered his previously unattached “HOO HA!” cross country weekend. “When I was racing seriously, a young guy like myself could enter a big race and see how he compared to local and national pros. Now, the sport’s gotten so segregated, with all these classes that keep people from racing straight-up against each other. I don’t think that’s a good thing for riders or promoters. The Triple Crown lets us turn back the clock and open things up. The Triple Crown is open to all the fast dudes, whether they’re Pro, or Cat One or an East Coast Expert who doesn’t usually race in USAC events. That’s why we have the Open class, we don’t want to suddenly exclude the local Expert racers that have always supported our HOO HA! race. Actually, the whole reason we brought the Triple Crown to Massanutten in the first place was to give them the opportunity to win even more money than they did before. But it is a Triple, emphasize the triple, Crown. We only have two prize pools, one for the overall weekend standings for the men, and one for the overall weekend standings for the women. If an Elite rider only enters Sunday’s Cross Country, he’s going to be racing for medals like all the amateur Kenda Cup Qualifier classes that we also have at the HOO HA!.”
On the amateur side, riders of all categories will have the opportunity to compete in the Kenda Cup Qualifier on Sunday, with a side of Super D on Saturday. “Our Super D has always been a low-key deal in the past,” explains Willetts. “So we thought, ‘since our Super D is run as a time trial, why not have an open class and let anybody who wants see how they stack up against the big dogs?’ It only costs an extra five bucks for an amateur rider to race the Super D, if they enter online using the Super D/XC Combo. For more information on the June 19-20 Massanutten HOO HA!, the season final for the H2O Overdrive Triple Crown presented by Specialized and a Kenda Cup Qualifier for amateur racers, see SportsBaseOnline.com and search “HOO HA!”.
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