Boardercross FAQ

Team,
I have had some questions regarding how certain things work with the boardercross team. I will try to answer some in this email ...

How the races are run?
Each race consists of 1 rider from Lakeland, Milford, Detroit Country Day, Saint Mary's/Ladywood, and Romeo. These teams make up the East League. The West League (Howell, Brighton, Hartland and Williamston) compete at Mt. Brighton. We only meet them at the State Final.

If you take look at the result graphic that I post on the blog, you will see the order in which the races go. From top to bottom. The first race is the A Boys. Then we run the A Girls. Third is the B Boys followed by B Girls. Lastly we run the C riders.

A and B riders run 3 races. C runs 2.

The C riders are racing for experience only. So we try to fill the gate with whomever is ready to go. This is the reason that we don't have a roster for those races. We have started to announce bib numbers and school this year for the C riders.


How do the points work?
The points system is new this year. It was developed to place more emphasis on the higher gates (A1), eliminate placing better riders in lower gates to win more points, and to lessen the event of a tie. If you look at the sheet, you'll see that in the A1 race, first place is worth 334 points. With the rest of the places in that gate being 10 points apart. The next flight (A2) is 9 points apart for placement. The numbers decrease as the gates go down. The important thing to realize is that a A2 first place finish and a B5 first place finish can make up the point different for a A1 second place deficit. So even though B5 is technically worth less in total points, it's still important to win EACH race as it's all a combined score.

What is the significance of Time Trials?
The first event of the year - Time Trials - is a way for all of the coaches of all teams to gauge what riders are the fastest on our teams. This is a ROUGH gauge. Some riders do well with time trials, but freeze when riding next to others in a race. Some will time trial slow, but will excel in the close confines of racing. Because of the many aspects of boardercross, Jake and I came up with the "Team Placement Race" which now is also being used by the Milford Boardercross team as well.

What is the Team Placement Race?
The Team Placement Race is a system that we came up with to allow the riders to prove THEMSELVES to their team. It's a 3 race bracket system that will move riders up or down depending on how they place in a boardercross race against their OWN teammates. Unfortunately, with the unpredictability of boardercross, some riders will fall out of Point placement by not placing well in these races. The key is to be consistent, but to realize that sometimes you will have bad runs. It happens to the best. This system takes out the "coach favoritism" that is present in so many other high school sports. We will try to run a Team Placement race weekly as time and weather allow.

What's next?
We need to run a minimum of 8 races in a season. So there may be a double race coming up soon. I'll let everyone know when this is planned.

What's New this year?
The Divisional Final - This is a new race added this year. Scheduled for February 3rd. This race will take the top 2 teams to the State Finals on February 11th. In the past, it was the record of wins throughout the season which awarded the top 2 to the state finals.

Another Time Trial?
After the Divisional Final, we have a States Time Trial to place the top 20 riders from our division into the INDIVIDUAL race in the State Finals. So even though a team may not qualify for the State Final, individuals from that school can still go and compete. This is a VERY competitive bracket system that will ultimately crown the best boardercross racer for our league.

If you have any other questions regarding how boardercross works ... please feel free to ask.

Greg Koenig
LHS Snowboardcross Coach
LHS Snowboardcross Blog