A track owners perspective:
As one of the newest tracks in the Sequads series I would like to share some thoughts about some of the ideas already mentioned from my point of view.
1. In order to get the track as moist as possible without having to practice in absolute mud we water CCMX the day before and into the early part of the night. This allows it to soak in as much as possible and the top surface to dry out some before practice starts. Delaying the start till later in the morning really defeats all the effort put into this because as soon as the sun pops out the water starts evaporating. Also you are asking the track workers, EMT's, and flaggers to mess up more of their day by starting and finishing later and to have to work more hours during the hottest time of the day. Good help is hard to find at a reasonable price, and the cost can easily run $75-$100 an hour for a small track for flaggers and an EMT.
2. Awards. You are requiring the track to have on hand more awards than the number of racers that are showing up. You might consider cutting back to top 3 for each class till the numbers come back up. These things aren't cheap if you get nice one's and if any type of date or round # is included they are useless after the race unless a label can be changed.
3. Talk to the staff during the race if there is a problem. I asked at riders meeting for the racers to let us know if a safety problem occured during the race. Yet, not one person let me know that dust was an issue on portions of the track I could not see from the finish line area, or that a water pipe had burst on the back side of the track. I see some are more than willing to tell everyone that reads this forum there was a problem though! Do you not see you are being your own worst enemy? Instead of taking action that would have got the problems fixed you just convinced other riders not to come to our Sequad events, because of dust and mud, thereby dropping the numbers further, and teed off the track owner as well. Thanks again to Britt and the other 2 riders who weren't afraid to grab a fire hose and help out.
4. If you really love your hobby you will do what is necessary to make it work. If you don't love Mx then find one you do love. I have worked Friday night till 5 am on Saturday drove 90 miles and watched Chris race, drove back home and worked Saturday night till 3 am Sunday morning, got up at 7am and prepped the track for Sunday. I drove 420 miles on Monday, August 5 to pick up the plaques and trophies for the quad race and our Outcast Series race then worked 6:30 pm till 6 am that night. It is nothing for a bass fisherman to be up at 4am to be on the water at daybreak. If you want to sleep in, in the morning, play on a perfectly watered and manicured course, and still ride around on 4 wheels, consider GOLF. But don't slide it around on their grass like you do in our parking area or you will be asked to leave.
Here is a challenge for you. Take a strip of dirt from 20 to 40 feet wide, 1 mile long, on a 27 acre site, that varies greatly in composition, slope, exposure to sun and wind and try to get it saturated with water without being muddy while applying around 20,000 gallons of water. Build and maintain 18 exciting but safe jumps that work for beginners to experts, provide trash pick up and removal, cut the grass in the parking areas, provide a bathroom (fish out the paper towels from the commode some heathen threw in) score each moto without a single mistake even though some quads don't have a rear # plate as is required and the front one wasn't wiped off after practice, provide more awards than there are racers, ensure there are enough flaggers to make every jump safe, have an EMT on hand (or 2 and an ambulance, as was the case at CCMX) and do it all for a net profit of around $800 after having used practice money to buy the awards with. Now you can be a track owner and you can read a post from someone with all the answers (although he has not a clue) as how it should be done!
Dennis Akins Chriscross Mx