Anyway ... I think Nelso and others make some great points ... D Grade should be for new racers only ... and probably for ONLY their first race ... and it should be renamed it so it doesn't have the word grade in it. C Grade is where the real grades begin.

I look back on my first race weekend, and when asked by people how I went, my first answer was I survived, learned heaps and had great fun. If pushed I tell friends my best finish was 25th out of roughly 35ish (it's hard to see where the DNF's stop and the DNS's start). I say I broke into 1:13's for Nth Circuit and 1:50's for GP. I have no idea how I went in the D grade, but given it's grading / composition ... it's pretty irrelevant?

Maybe D Grade trophies should be seen like the gold star I got in kindie for not wetting my pants between recess and lunch ... at the time IT WAS an achievement ... but it's not something I put on my CV now.

[Apologies to Dan ... but I saw your 7th in qually on the second day as what I most remembered of your stellar performance over the weekend. Well along with some porn footage on how to hump a bike between T11/T12 ]