Course Difficulty

[Ridge]

First I want to say how much I appreciate everyone that puts in the time and effort to host these races. My post is not to take away from that effort but just to give a different view. I brought friends to this last race and frankly they did not enjoy it and it was much tougher than I was expecting also. If I knew what was in store then I would have not gotten them to come because now I feel like it will be impossible to convince them to try another one. Most of the time they are great fun which is why I encouraged my buddies to come but for these tougher ones maybe keep in mind that not everyone has a high skill level and would rather ride there bike instead of push.
Please dont misunderstand or take this the wrong way because Im not trying to make anyone upset Im just trying to give my feedback to try and help.

[Ajudy300]

I hate to hear you and your friends had a bad experience at the race. Maybe a solution to this would be for the series to have a difficulty rating of some sort on the schedule page. So everyone kinda knows what they are in for and could decide wether or not they wanted to show up for the challenge. I don’t think the solution is for all of the races to be easy.(Not that you are recommending that. Just rambling on here) Most of the races in this series are actually pretty tame and beginner friendly already. A few of them aren’t the best for a true beginner, but it gives a chance for the technical savvy riders to shine. Hopefully your friends aren’t too discouraged and will be back to try one of the easier tracks sometime next season. And hopefully as their skill grows they will be back to attempt the more difficult races as well.

I personally think it’s great to have a few tracks on the circuit that suit the more technically skilled racers. But we as promoters could do better at letting everyone know the difficulty before hand. The DJM race will be a technical one in 2021. Thundering bison will probably only be slightly less difficult in 2021. A mostly new course is already in the works. With the terrain we work with, there will still be some challenges. Just slightly less severe. And with hopefully a few less bottle necks.(if Any at all)

[wfopete]

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It's always a bummer when people don't enjoy themselves and I don't think any promoter wants to have a problematic course. In the same breath promoters need to be cognizant of all riders/classes when things get extra technical. A level guys are always filtering up through the pack and don't want to get slowed/stopped due to bottlenecks and no one wants to be the bottleneck. Alternate lines, room for passing and awareness of potential problems are part of it. That said; I think riders need to meet a certain skill set before entering a AHSCS event as Arkansas woods racing is generally more technical than in a lot of other areas. I only made three AHSCS events this year; Atkins, Sturkie and Kingston and each had technical areas and potential show stoppers for me so I must be getting soft but I enjoyed all three of those events. But yeah, a rating might be in order, for newbies.

[Jason Harmon]

Regardless of if a rider is a beginner or has years of experience, I believe that we should focus more effort on the tracks being fun and rideable for everyone, not just the ones at the top.

Unlike enduros where they can make the short course (C-classes) fairly tame and then make the long course tougher if they choose, we don't have that same luxury since all of our adult classes race at the same time. Being in Arkansas, rocks are unavoidable, but in my opinion, when possible, every effort should be made to avoid extremely difficult or rough, gnarly sections that simply beat the hell out of you.

The recent race at Gravelly would have to be classified as "easy" if you simply base it on how technical the trails were, but everyone I talked to after the race really seemed to have a good time, regardless of skill level. Conversely, while I wasn't able to attend Thundering Bison this year, I did hear a lot about it from several very good riders and they all indicated that it was brutal.

I highly doubt anyone will avoid going to a track like Gravelly in the future because it's "too easy", but I am absolutely certain that you'll have riders choosing to skip rough, gnarly tracks that they had a terrible time at. As a series, I'm not sure why we'd want to encourage that.

There are plenty of options out there these days where a rider can go if they'd like to challenge themselves on tough terrain. Two of them, the Red Bull Override in Texas and the Ozark 100 in Missouri, are even coming up in the next several weeks for anyone interested in testing themselves on something more difficult.

[ShelbyJohnson]

Ridge thanks for sharing the feedback.

When we have the acreage to cut and prep a long course you don’t have to find the most difficult terrain. The best easy terrain alone will wear racers out.

Our entry data shows our C & D rows make up our biggest entry fee revenue, and that helps the Series operate and pay the race insurance. If we want those rows to keep having a healthy turnout it’s better for the Series have to have tracks that all rows can complete and have fun. Having fun is what brings people back to the next race.

Please let your buddies know there are all kinds of tracks, in the Series, each with different terrain, and features. Encourage them to come out again to another race and they’ll have fun.

[Jamey Mooney]

I like the harder courses but can understand that some of the new riders don’t enjoy them. If we are going to make all the tracks not as difficult then maybe have the A classes be 3 hours long? Just a thought.