West Virginia Interscholastic Cycling League

WVICL Weather Policy

Below are the guidelines for how WVICL will conduct races in the event of challenging weather. Our primary considerations are the safety of racers, race support staff, race visitors, and potential damage to the race venue (trails and infield).

Any decisions regarding cancelling, postponing, or altering race start times, lap length, number of laps, etc. will be made jointly by the WVICL League Director, Race Director and the land manager. Often this decision cannot be made until the day of the race due to the unpredictable and emergent nature of inclement weather. We will do our best to make the call to change venue, reschedule, or cancel a race by noon (12:00 p.m.) on the Thursday immediately preceding the race weekend.

WVICL will make every attempt to notify the racing population via email (addresses taken from rider, parent, and coach emails entered when registering in the Pit Zone online registration system), Facebook, Twitter, and website updates as soon as possible.

WVICL Weather Guidelines:

  • Races are held on their scheduled dates and times unless the race course or weather on the day of the race is deemed un-rideable and/or dangerous.
  • WVICL will have the option to delay the start of a race from the published times if the weather has created dangerous conditions.
  • Courses and/or lap lengths may be altered or shortened because of weather conditions.
    • WVICL will advise of changes to race course or lap count at the pre-race coach’s meeting if changes are known at that time.
    • Last minute changes will be broadcast to racers at the start of each field via the staging and starting staff.
  • All racing will stop immediately in the presence of lightning, thunder or other obviously dangerous weather conditions. Course marshals will direct racers off course where they can seek shelter in vehicles, trailers/RVs, or buildings.
  • Re-starting a race that has been stopped (and course cleared) due to lightning (or other emergency);
    • Depending on schedule and number of laps completed, the race may be declared over. If time permits, racers will be directed to re-stage at the start line and an abbreviated race will be conducted. If time or weather conditions will not permit the race to restart, racers will be scored based upon their position in their last completed lap.
  • Race fees:
    • If a race venue is moved or a race is rescheduled race fees will automatically be applied to the moved or rescheduled race.
    • If a race is cancelled due to unforeseen weather conditions, fees will not be refunded. WVICL still incurs most expenses associated with holding the race (site fees, equipment rentals, insurance, etc). As such, we ask for your cooperation in donating your race fee to the league to help us offset those expenses, and help us build a stronger league for the future. If this creates a financial hardship for you or you feel that you cannot support this guideline, please send your refund request to cassie@westvirginiamtb.org.
  • Race points:
    • If a race is cancelled (not able to be moved or rescheduled):
      • No team points will be awarded and the race will not be included in the season overall team point standings.
      • No individual points will be awarded and the race will not be included in the season overall individual point standings. Riders will still have a “drop race” available from the remaining races (i.e.: season overall standings will be calculated based on 3 of 4 per NICA rule 8.1) and the 25 series bonus points will be awarded based on completion of all races in the shortened series.
    • If a race is partially completed (some fields complete their race and others do not):
      • No team points will be awarded and the race will not be included in the season overall team point standings.
      • Individual points will be awarded in all of the fields that completed their race and those fields will proceed through the season as normal.
      • No individual points will be awarded in the fields where races were not completed and the race will not be included in the season overall individual point standings. Riders will still have a “drop race” available from the remaining races (i.e: season overall standings will be calculated based on 3 of 4 per NICA rule 8.1) and the 25 series bonus points will be awarded based on completion of all races in the shortened series.

WVICL Refund Policy

WVICL understands that money is valuable and that circumstances come up that can cause a change in plans. We want to work with you to put your money to good use wherever possible. We also forecast our race resource planning based on having a solid understanding of how many riders we are expecting. Based on these considerations we have adopted the following race fee refund guidelines for all requests not directly related to weather as noted in the above weather policy:

  • Season fees (coaching, membership, etc.) pertain to a host of activities outside of racing and are generally not refundable once paid.
  • Race fees for any given race will be refunded (minus a $10 service charge) as long as we receive an email by midnight (12:00 a.m.) on the Wednesday prior to race day. If you prefer, we will transfer race fees of a rider to a later race in the season with no service charge as long as we receive an email by midnight (12:00 a.m.) on the Wednesday prior to race day.
    • No race fee refunds or transfers will be given once racing has begun on a given race weekend.
    • Note that we usually cannot respond to emails on race weekend (Friday through Sunday) so as long as the time and date stamp on your sent email meets the above guidelines we will honor it. It is highly unlikely we will respond with confirmation on a race weekend.
  • Any requests for refund or transfer must be sent to cassie@westvirginiamtb.org and must include the name of the rider, the team of the rider (if any), and the race name or race date the request is for.