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Grand Junction, CO
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jeff.brines
6/6/2019 1:25pm
6/6/2019 1:25pm
Slow work day, lack of race coverage, rain and being stuck in the office has me circling back to an old idea...
Wouldn't it be cool if we could aggregate an overall ranking for gravity disciplines across multiple levels of racing?
While I think chasing a WC overall is rad, or an EWS overall is cool, I think there should be some kind of system that puts everything together, WC, EWS, and even the smaller races like iXS Cup, Crankworks, ProGRT etc.
This would reward the guys like Eddie and Wyn, guys who go out and race as much as they can just because they love it.
I don't need to name names, but I think its super lame when riders miss out on events like Crankworks only because they are chasing some overall championship. I "get it", I just have more respect for the guys that race weekend after weekend, regardless of what that may mean for an overall.
Other sports have ways to tally this sort of thing up (golf, NCAA football).
What does Vital think? Worthwhile idea or waste of time?
Wouldn't it be cool if we could aggregate an overall ranking for gravity disciplines across multiple levels of racing?
While I think chasing a WC overall is rad, or an EWS overall is cool, I think there should be some kind of system that puts everything together, WC, EWS, and even the smaller races like iXS Cup, Crankworks, ProGRT etc.
This would reward the guys like Eddie and Wyn, guys who go out and race as much as they can just because they love it.
I don't need to name names, but I think its super lame when riders miss out on events like Crankworks only because they are chasing some overall championship. I "get it", I just have more respect for the guys that race weekend after weekend, regardless of what that may mean for an overall.
Other sports have ways to tally this sort of thing up (golf, NCAA football).
What does Vital think? Worthwhile idea or waste of time?
Both parties would probably like that anyway.
i like the EWS qualifier attempts. the structure is solid and pretty straight forward. WC points entry is too vague and confusing and random. if it was more obvious to spend X time with X results on Pro GRT or iXS-level races, wouldn't that help riders and sponsors plan career paths and race teams more efficiently? doesn't moto kinda work that way? i feel like i'm talking about things i don't know the details on haha.
crankworx will never be world cup level excitement. if it hasn't happened by now, it won't w/o the UCI folding or throwing away DH or crankworx offering $1m prize purses to give riders a reason to try. olympics require UCI, world champs requires UCI. brands like the olympics and brands fully splintering DH and enduro away from UCI would never happen.
voreis was all hyped about the idea of a "180" DH class (aka enduro bikes/singlecrown). some races already have this, but on a WC level, it'd be awesome. exact same track, a little bit smaller bikes. that's a different forum topic all together.
(btw, leogang stuff is on, pit bits, cathro and wyn all on homepage as of a few mins ago)
Hell, you could even keep enduro out of the picture entirely if you want to make the argument its really a different sport, which I understand. I just think these "smaller" races should count toward something. Call it the VitalMTB Gravity Ironman Rankings or something. Maybe it doesn't surpass WC, World Champs or even National Rankings, but it'd be cool to reward the guys who race a lot, regardless of what it "means".
I would never suggest a system that doesn't heavily weight the world cups. The math would get a little tricky, in that you weight every race according to some arbitrary value. I really think it'd have to be a system where you just upload results and it gives points based on a set formula where the following variables are taken into account...
1) Value of the event (arbitrarily set). Say 100% World Champs, 95% World Cups, 70% Nat Champs, 65% Crankworks, 50% ProGRT and iXS Cup etc etc
2) Number of Riders. If the field is less than "X" there is some kind of value detractor added in.
3) Placing. Points would be awarded in some fashion based on finish position. Then those points would be applied to the formula I suggested above where certain multipliers detract from total points given depending on what the event was, size of the event, etc.
Points are added up through the year. Guy/Gal with most points is the ironman of gravity or whatever you want to call it. Obviously you could couple enduro into this too, or just have the same system for an enduro overall ranking.
I think it'd be really cool. Especially if a sponsor would put some real money on the line (hahahahaha, I know)
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