Thats too bad for Rosemeyer. This new format leaves absolutely no room for error. Personally I think taking a third place in a heat race is a great race for anyone, let alone a national semi-pro. I think the 3 round format that wpsa ran would suit the racers' and fans' needs a little better. Snowcross is very expensive, and a lot of time and effort is put into the sport. The 3 round format would give the riders more track time, and make things a little more fair. If a rider gets tangled, just like Rosemeyer, his weekend just about ended faster than it began. The old format also lets each rider face the majority of the competition with a round robin set-up.
From a business standpoint: Lets face it. Snowcross is, as of right now, a dying sport. With today's economy, rider entries are down and the cost of racing is up. To any spectator that doesn't know much about the sport, which is the general population, semi-pro and pro classes are pretty much the reason why they came to the event. Don't get me wrong, at the national level nearly every class has really fast riders (James Johnstad in the juniors and Cody Thomsen in Sport are just a few), but wouldn't it make sense to give the two classes, that the majority of spectators come to see, more track time? The longer these people are at the event for, the more of a possibility there is for them to spend money on our sport, whether it is buying something from a vendor or getting another drink at the bar. That was the only disappointment of the weekend for me. Other than the semi-pro and pro classes being too short, I thought that ISOC ran the event smoothly and was on time, unlike wpsa in the past. As far as the freestyle goes, although it was a little disappointing, it did keep the spectators around. There was a huge gap of time in between racing and the freestyle on Friday, and the spectators still hung around. The bar was packed and people were spending money. I think that the freestyle will get better as the year goes on, and it definitely needs to stay in the line-up. This is just my opinion. I would like to hear some other ones.
