boyfriends please apply (to USAC)

Our local racing district, the NCNCA, announced an incentive program last fall. It's called the 2006 Club Challenge, and the program is designed to reward clubs for developing new racers. Recruiting and developing new racers is a lot of work and uses lots of resources, and it's great that the NCNCA is providing recognition for those efforts.

Velo Girls is all about developing new racers. In 2003, almost 100% of our 36 racers were new. In 2004 and 2005, about 50% of our 40 or so racers were new. We're a tiny bit below that this season, but we made some changes to our race team which resulted in lower recruitment numbers.

It looks like we'll win the NCNCA Club Challenge this season.

But that's not the point of this post. You see, there's a certain club that decided to work the system. USAC licenses dropped in price on September 1st. And since then, this certain club has added 9 new racers (almost all women). One can only assume they're the girlfriends of team members and have no intention at all of ever racing. A buddy of mine on the team confirmed that there had been emails about the "contest" encouraging folks to register their SOs.

The leader of this team has been posting excitedly about the club challenge on the NCNCA forum, realizing that his team will move way up in the rankings (from 7th to 2nd). Although he's really clever, somehow, he seems to have missed the intention of this incentive program. If I'm not mistaken, the point is to recruit and develop new racers, not just add names to a team's roster.

I know, who cares? I hate people who cheat. I have no respect for others who find loopholes and kinks in the system. I just don't get it! In this case, it's like the girl scout who tries to get every single merit badge but doesn't learn anything in the process. What honor is that?

And how about the teams that will be displaced because of this -- teams who actually focus on new racer development? How is it fair to them? Or the larger teams who focus on development but have such large rosters that they don't have a high percentage of new racers? This type of behavior cheapens the recognition for all the clubs who actually worked hard at developing new racers.

And, assuming the NCNCA is smart enough to know what's happening, how will this affect their decision to have an incentive program like this again in 2007? Casey says there will be some modifications in the rules to discourage ballot stuffing in the future.

Sheesh! Why do some people have to be so clever? And why do I even care?