Welcome to the Rodeo Labs Race Director Round Up! Over the next few weeks, as the gravel race “season” gets underway, we have decided to take on a mini-series focusing on gravel racing through the collective eyes of gravel race directors from across the country. Race directors are both the tastemakers and the police of the nucleus concept of “the spirit of gravel.” While race directors have a fantastic platform to voice their perspective for their own races, that voice is often limited to those narrow confines. The goal here is to use our podcast, as a small journalistically minded outlet with no skin in the game, to give them a collective platform to share their interpretations of the state of the sport.
Part two of the Race Director round up focuses on the directors of the “mid majors” in gravel racing. These races are the bread and butter of the discipline. They are the independent heartbeat of dirt road racing. Often, the promoters are the heartbeat as well – investing so much of their time and money into the ventures that are never guaranteed to pay off. With this investment, and with those race promoters shaping their races from their own personality and geographies, the different races offer both comparisons and contrasts. This offers us at the Rodeo Labs Podcast a chance to get a little non-linear with our stories.
In this episode the over five hours of recorded conversations with the race directors of these independent “mid major” races. Thank you to all who agreed to chat, and, for those interested, attached is a list of the race directors and their races.
Rebecca Rusch — Rebecca’s Private Idaho
Jess Cerra and Sam Boardman — The Last Best Ride
Andy Chasteen — Rule of Three
Fabian Serralta — Gravel Locos
Gordon Wadsworth and Emily Hairfield — The Appalachian Journey
Whitney and Zack Allison — Foco Fondo
Bobby Wintle — The Midsouth
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