IMO the worst thing they could have done was done, which was entire elite and master fields instead of ability based racing.
This causes the pace to be insane as you have guys on the front, national champions, pushing guys mid pack out of their minds, and the back markers are just waiting to get lapped several times. They are just hanging on for dear life and mistakes happen. There was ZERO requirements for this race, you didnt even have to take an intro to track course.
I didn't race last weekend for a variety of reasons, this being the biggest one though. Nationals and MIC went off really well but it was because everyone was on the same level, fresh riders were not showing up to that. I 100% think racing needs to happen in some way or another, but it needs to be graceful and eased on. A/B race, gear restrictions, smaller fields, all would have probably prevented a lot of issues, and frankly would have let people enjoy the racing more. Some guys simply will never reach the level of national champions, so its not much encouragement to come back.