I was kinda affraid that it would come to this... The "this" that I'm speaking of is the Leadville 100 MTB Race. With the recent popularity of the event because of Lance and the Race Across the Sky movie, I'm sure that Ken and Merilee were flooded with applications for the 2010 race.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of rumblings coming from those who "didn't make the cut". I understand that that's going to happen. Things have certainly changed from the first time I did the race in 1997 and the last time in 2006 (and 3 other times in between...). That, I guess is to be expected.
A buddy of mine who I went out to crew for last year, applied for the 2010 race. He even volunteered a whole day marking the course.... Still, no dice. (You are supposed to get preference in the 2010 entry process). Anyway, here's something that he just sent me that he found posted on the LT100 message board:
I have a friend that has started this race endeavor alongside me 9 years
ago. He's finished 4 LV100's. Then he was injured when he hit a guard rail
training for LV100 and had to take a couple of years off for the bone to
heal and other important family matters. He has been volunteering in the
foot race and the bike race over the last 4 years whether he raced or not.
Hell, he even scrambled to pick up and deliver the musette bag Lance fumbled
and dropped at the Twin Lakes Aid Station two years ago while he flew
through the checkpoint. He applied this year ready to race and finish. He
didn't make the cut.
In his 'Dear John' email from Merilee they said 'sorry, you didn't make it,
but basically you can buy your way in by forking out a wad of cash via
Carmichael's Train Right program. Obviously the corporate machine has its
teeth sunk into this cash cow. I see too many political similarities here
that came down from the State level.
Bottom line is that we want things be "more popular" or more "mainstream", but we don't want things about it to change... That rarely happens. Thanks for reading. -John
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