Pros stage walkout at Music City Nats.

[bnd]

I wonder if this will continue next weekend.

IN a nutshell, all of the pro failed to stage up for their semis & mains.



From Joey Bradford on Facebook:

"Well this was an interesting day to say the least!! There has been a lot of speculation as to why the Elite Men/Elite Women did not race today, but here is the cliff notes summary:

The riders were not asking for MORE money, we were only asking for what we signed up for. USABMX made a big deal out of the enhanced payouts for the 2013 USA BMX pro series and the total purses were supposed to be dependent on rider counts at each national… but the payouts did not match what we signed up for.

Yesterday in Nashville 38 Elite Men/AA signed up, and according to USABMX's regular season pro purse that should have fallen into the "36 or More Riders = $10,000" category (link here - http://www.usabmx.com/site/postings/862 ), but they have now said that because they had to pay a few UCI expenses that our payouts were less than $3,000... TOTAL PURSE, which wasn't even 100% payback from the Elite Men/AA entree fees - $130 x 38 = $4,940, and the total Elite Men payout was less than $2,700. Those expenses should not have come out of OUR pockets.

Now, we appreciate everything USABMX does, they're BY FAR the best in the business but it does NOT say anywhere that the payouts will be altered at these USABMX/UCI combined races… NOR WAS ANY RIDER TOLD BEFORE THEY FLEW ACROSS THE COUNTRY/WORLD AND PAID THE SAME ENTREE FEES. This was dropped on us after racing Saturday and when the riders asked for an answer we were only told they would try to figure it out NEXT week. It's difficult to not take that as when you're a kid wanting to go to an amusement park or whatever and your parents say "next week" over, and over, and over, and over until 8 months later you finally get to go.

The only reason this did not happen Saturday was because the pro PODIUM checks from Fridays race were left blank, so nobody knew what they made until after racing Saturday night. To the fans/supporters standing out in the rain watching there in Nashville or live online.. sorry we couldn't give you the show you were hoping to see, but something needed to be done. We may not have gone about it the best way, but whats done is done. Hopefully things change for the better going forward and I was happy to see all of the riders stick together on this."

Here's a link to the BMX News story..
http://www.bmxnews.com/2013/06/elites-take-a-roll-out-and-keep-going/


b.