After getting licensed, new officials work their first few races as apprentices.
Assigned as a +1 on a full crew of officials.
Start to apply in practice all that freshly acquired licensing knowledge.
You receive standard official pay, but it comes from MABRA while in training. The organizer pays the working crew.
Understanding how a race is scored is essential knowledge for being a good official and functioning in any role. Apprentices work mostly as an Assistant Judge to learn scoring. They also get to see how the crew of officials work together, and will do some Assistant Referee work.
After a few races, the training wheels come off. No longer a +1 apprentice, you fill a position as an official within the crew. There is still plenty to learn by experience, but now you're doing it while working the race. You'll be supported as you develop skills; the Officials Coordinator and our small officials community all want you to succeed. The assignments available to you grow as you build experience.
You're an official first and a motoref second. That's true existentially as well as in the sequence of getting licensed and out on the road.
The applied knowledge of scoring, crew communication, and general officiating you pick up in your early work as a ground official is table stakes to you succeeding in your early races as a motoref. You'll gain even more context if you're able to work some as an AJ/AR at races with motorefs, but there's still plenty you'll pick up without them.
That doesn't stop after your first couple of races. Working as a ground official makes you a better motoref.
You will apprentice at least one race as a motoref in training, working as a +1 to a full crew. Similar to ground apprentice, after you clear apprentice status you're on to filling a role as an official in the working crew while continuing to develop skills.
Working your first races is all about you keeping your head, controlling your motorcycle, and functioning within the living organism of the race and the team of officials. Your early goals are deceptively simple in theory. See how it goes in practice.
Ride with the race and do no harm.
Recognize and understand what is going on with the race situation.
Operate thoughtfully within the norms for motor positioning and crew coordination, based on the race type and situation.
Observe and communicate the race situation with other officials in workmanlike terms.
Before your debut, brush up on focused relevant knowledge. Even veteran motorefs do a periodic tune up & refresh. All of these are available on the Resources page.
USA Cycling Rule Book. What rules apply to the race you’re doing?
Motorcycle Handbook. Review the relevant sections.
The Working The Front article for its communication examples.
See the equipment section at the bottom here. KISS!
View local racing calendars at MABRA. Look up details for a specific race at BikeReg. Here are some broad brush comments on the MABRA racing calendar’s opportunities for new officials and motorefs.
Just about any race you can get to is a good race for learning. Here are some particularly good ones for learning to score:
Feb/Mar Trade Zone is an office park circuit race that's a good early road season opportunity.
Beyond that, any crit, small circuit, or cyclocross race (CX season is Sep – Dec) is great scoring practice.
The Greenbelt series (Wed nights May – July) is where scoring Jedi are forged. The hottest fire makes the strongest steel.
The road season runs Feb to August. Most of the road races from April to August use motorefs, typically at least 2, when there are multiple fields on course sometimes 6. Trade Zone and Greenbelt don’t have motors. Wilmington and Armed Forces need experience. Most other races are generally in play for new motorefs. Even if you're not working as a motoref, being an AJ or AR at a race with motorefs is an opportunity to see, hear, and learn how they work together with the crew.
All races have a Chief Referee and Chief Judge. You can do that later eventually. Most races will have Assistant Judge(s) and Referree(s) which you can do sooner. Motorefs are a flavor of Assistant Referee, as are Pit Refs (crit) and Pit Refs (cyclocross). In a typical local cyclocross race, the Pit Ref and AJ will swap every few races which makes for a nice change of scenery in your day and a good learning curve. In a typical crit, if there’s a rotation for the Pit Ref, it’s probably through an extra motoref rather than an AJ. But each race and each crew is unique, just like all the other ones.
Look at your calendar and MABRA's to identify opportunities. It’s relatively easy to get scheduled as an apprentice. You're working as a +1 on a full crew of officials so you’re not limited to open spots. Once you’re through your apprenticing, you need to look a bit further out. You'll get fair consideration for available assignments by raising your hand well in advance before the assignments are made. You'll also be able to see any remaining open spots closer in.
To get on the schedule, work with the MABRA Officials Coordinator -- initially by email then, when you get licensed, through your account at usac-officials.org. That's a stand-alone scheduling tool for viewing, requesting, and managing race assignments. If you don't get pushed account access right away, ask about it; meanwhile, don't let early hiccups with site access get in the way of you communicating to get on the calendar.
These two Google Groups are in play for MABRA goings on. Sign up to keep up.
mabra-uscf. Race announcements and miscellaneous chatter for the broader MABRA community. Consider setting to daily digest mode.
mabra-officials. Officials only. Not used often and when it is, it is often notable. Consider leaving in each email mode.
There’s a missive on motoref equipment in the Resources section. It starts with shortcuts to the minimum gear you'll need for your first races. Take the shortcuts. This is somewhere that if the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum. Don’t let gadgetry consume mental bandwidth and get in the way of your first experiences on the road.
The big ticket items are:
A motorcycle. BYO. Reliable, agile, and quiet.
An open face or modular helmet. You will speak with riders, blow whistles, etc., none of which works well from inside a full face helmet.
After that, as stated in the document, you only need few little things to get going. Keep it simple, proven, and cheap.
An officials vest. Probably a MABRA loaner at first. Confirm its availability at the race for you via the Chief Ref or lead motor, well in advance. If you get hooked you'll need to get your own eventually. Use the loaner at first.
To talk, MABRA can loan you a radio with a hand mic. Listen with a BYO single left ear earbud (example in the equipment missive) and talk via the mic, cupping your hand to reduce wind noise.
A whistle and stopwatch. Know how to take splits.
A pen or pencil on a string and some note taking material.
Take a test drive well before the race to confirm the things you plan to use are functional. Your first race shouldn't be, for example, the first time you recorded a number while riding or took a split with your stopwatch. You may not have a race radio handy to test but you can certainly test your earbud fit and function under your helmet with your phone in a jacket pocket. Show up alert, prepared, and relaxed.