On Friday morning, as reported here, Lance Bergeson the Race Director for Capital Pursuit Races wrote an editorial for the Des Moines Register regarding Racepass.
This race director was frustrated that his races were appearing on Racepass.com after he had requested that Racepass remove his events.
Chase Rigby one of the co-founders emailed me a link to their response.
https://medium.com/racepass/response-to-how-racepass-is-affecting-capital-pursuit-eadc55403df
In the response, written by co-founder Tom Hammel, he states that the race was removed within 48 hours and that the race may have been showing up in this case as a result of cached browsing data not being refreshed. It does appear that the race is no longer being offered on Racepass.com
I am aware of other races that have asked to be removed and I am keeping an eye on those to see how long it takes for those requests to be honored.
Conceptually, I can see where a platform that lists all races in one place in an easily searchable interface would be beneficial to runners and races. From that standpoint, Racepass could be a useful tool and potentially beneficial to races.
As part of the Racepass response, they state that they are still working on the functionality to allow for race specific waivers. Until that process is fully implemented, any Racepass accepted registrations could be in violation with the Road Runner’s Club of America (RRCA) waiver requirement.
I stand by my belief that in order for the Racepass subscription model to survive, they need Race Director approval. To do this they need to be able to offer the products in a manner that is fully compliant with what the industry requires from a legal and liability standpoint.
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I’m struggling to understand the problem here, if each runner is completing their own waiver.
Is this race director suggesting that he has a personal relationship with every website out there that lists road races around the US? Because I find that extremely difficult to believe, as I couldn’t even tell you how many of those there are. And if Racepass is bringing people to his race, what does he care if someone is making money off of it? So are local restaurants. Does he have a contract with all of them? If the local CVB wants to put it on their list of events for the weekend, he wants them ask permission first? Let’s say some kid starts a “Things to do in Des Moines” blog, this guy wants what, exactly, before he lists the event? A cut of his google ad clicks?
The complaint that “MY race is listed on someone’s website” is silly, since there are countless others that do the same and have for a while now. The complaint that someone is making money (que horror!!) helping him make money is just ridiculous.
Racepass users are failing to complete proper waivers for these races. From what I remember, Racepass drafted their own single generic “waiver” in an attempt to cover the requirements for any possible race.
One single generic form is an insufficient substitute for filling out the proper paperwork that EACH race requires from their participants.
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