I’m sorry but there was no excuse for the timing problems at the Sea Otter Classic. To put it bluntly, the organizers, the timing “officials”, and the USA Cycling “officials” f*cked up beyond belief.

The Sea Otter Classic is supposed to be a professionally run racing event. Being a racing event, timing of the athletes is one of the most important factors. I do not have to go into why.

I raced in three events at the Sea Otter. In my first event, the road race, I received no result. During the protest period I brought this up to the USCF official. He wrote down my name and number and said it would be passed on to the timing officials.

After waiting for 30 minutes the final results were posted. Again, my result was not posted. I again asked the official about my missing result. He explained, rather gruffly, that the results were final and the timing officials had decided I did not finish! After questioning further he said there was nothing else I could do and that I would not get a result. He was very terse and showed no interest in helping.

On Saturday I decided to speak with another official. I also wanted to be sure the “timing chip” was functioning. I did not want to race that day and the next with the same chip if the problem was with the chip.

Luckily, I was able to speak with another official. She was very helpful and looked up my result. She was unable to find a time from the chip but was able to find a manual time. She then guaranteed that I would get a result and that it would be posted. I also had her check the chip and it verified as working.

I raced later that day and luckily received a timing. This was especially important since I placed 6th in the circuit race.

Sunday’s race came and after finishing, I waited for the results. Again, no result! Another round of hanging around and dealing with the official. This required 30+ minutes of waiting and waiting. The official finally came back to me and explained that they didn’t have a chip time for me but they did have a manual time. He also promised that I would have a result and it would be posted.

Well, I’m sure you know the story now. No result.

So after promises from the officials, to use the term loosely, I have received no results for either of those races.
I am bitter at the organizers, the timing “officials”, and also with the USA Cycling “officials”.

There is no excuse. They failed to deliver, broke promises, and showed no regard for the sport and its athletes.

[Update – May 31, 2002]

I have received comments about the Sea Otter timing fiasco, several at issue with my blaming the officials. Below are some snippets and one of my responses.

> As one of the officials at Sea Otter, I think that the more who know about
> all the stuff that happened, the better. I wasn’t a judge, and consider
> myself fortunate for that. The electronic gizmos which the Sea Otter folks
> paid good money for were a joke. The judges had to sort out literally
> several thousand riders from equipment which was not working as it was
> supposed to. At some point, the judges switched to using the backup camera
> as primary, but by that time it was a nightmare. There were many
> complaints, including some repeated complaints which went a lot further than
> they should.

And from another e-mail:

> I didn’t go to the site and read the complaint about the Sea Otter results,
> but putting any blame in the officials is just wrong. If it weren’t for the
> officials, there would have been no results at all. The problem was with the
> promoter. They had new software that was supposed to handle all of the
> results. It was untested. The officials told the promoter that it wouldn’t
> work. The promoter insisted on using the software anyway, guaranteeing that
> all of the bugs would be worked out by race day. Guess what happened? The
> software didn’t work. It took several hours for the promoter’s results people
> to admit that they would not be capable of generating results. The officials
> stepped in and took care of the problem. They were up until something like 3
> in the morning finalizing the first day’s results.

Thanks for shedding more light on the issue.

It’s become clear that the officials at the Sea Otter Classic were stuck between a rock and a hard place. This has not been public knowledge. Sadly, there is almost no coverage or mention of the timing problems that occurred. There hasn’t even been an apology to the racers from the sponsor. Why is that?

My frustration and disappointment arose because of:

1. Having no results for 2 of my races, the road race and the XC.
2. Being treated poorly by the official after the road race.
3. Being promised by officials that my results were found and would be posted but never having it happen.

Now, after learning more about what occurred, I can understand how the follow through (results posted) never happened. There were obviously plenty of other fires to deal with.

The major issue was the mishandling of the timing by Rick Sutton’s staff. Not the officiating.

Thanks,

– Hans