Originally Posted by
tobukog
My team mate and I were talking about it, and we speculated it was a combination of things. 1) Many masters have kids, and it's just bad timing being around the 1st week of school. 2) As fun as it to ride at Carson, it's not that forgiving of a track for people who are used to shallower tracks. Kind of like road nationals in Colorado (which I opted not to attend due to the altitude despite having a good chance on "paper") 3) We've had 3 consecutive big track events in LA -- maybe a little burnout? 4) You're just not going to have the turnout similar to a more centrally (drivable) located track like Indy or T-town.
Oh, and they did have USADA there for non-world record testing. But at the magnitude of $1000? per test, it's going to be limited.
I was wondering about that too.
Regarding it being a 250, I recall in the weeks leading up to masters nationals at Rock Hill in 2017, lots of people came down to get practice on the steeper track, and many commented on how scary it seemed to ride so high on the steep walls. I can only assume going from pretty grippy concrete to much less grippy wood would be even more frightening.
Traveling out there for pre-race practice is more challenging too as LA has very strict requirements and extensive certification processes before one can ride there. I had to pull a few strings to be able to participate in a training session there last fall.