WTRL has just announced a new series of races which begins today. Dubbed “ZRacing Chase Races“, this series is sure to be popular thanks to its format and innovative autocat feature. Let’s dig into the details!
Intro to Chase Races: A Fun Format sans Sandbaggers
Chase races (also known as handicap, pursuit, or cat and mouse races) have been held on Zwift for years. In this sort of race, category groups are released with time gaps between each group, with the slowest groups going first.
The goal of the race organizer is to space the categories so each group has to push hard to catch the groups ahead. Ideally, those groups come together near the end of the race for an all-out battle to the line!
Handicapped races are a fun alternative to the standard scratch race format because they offer a unique mix of teamwork and personal strategy while letting racers of all categories compete fairly against each other. Everyone has a chance to win.
But chase racing on Zwift has always had an Achilles’ heel: sandbaggers can ruin everything.
Chase races are amazing when organizers set proper time gaps, and groups ride within their prescribed abilities. But just one sandbagger going hard on the front of a group can push that bunch’s speed artificially high, causing them to catch slower groups more quickly and not get caught by groups chasing from behind.
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Autocat to the Rescue
WTRL’s ZRacing Chase Race series aims to remove the “sandbagger flaw” by using their proven “autocat” system to properly categorize racers.
Read more about WTRL’s Autocat system >
Whereas Zwift’s event signup system lets anyone sign up for any race category, WTRL’s autocat system calculates your proper category based on your race history, and only lets you join the correct category. Easy.
How to Sign Up
Signing up is dead simple if you already have WTRL.racing and ZwiftPower.com accounts. Simply visit wtrl.racing/zracing-chase-race/#registration, log in, and click the event you want to join. The Autocat system will detect your category and sign you up for the event.
Here’s the signup screen I received:
Race Schedule
The ZRacing Chase Race series is an ongoing weekly event held each Wednesday at multiple times. WTRL tells me that event times may change based on participation numbers as the series develops.
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Fresh Kits
Created for this series, riders in each category will be wearing matching kits starting December 15. This lets you know who’s on your “team” and who isn’t!
Note: the “E” category is for “Elite”. It is the highest (strongest) category.
Powerups
Three powerups will be given out during the races: aero, feather, and van.
Read more about Zwift powerups >
Race Results
Race results will be processed and made available by WTRL at wtrl.racing/zracing-chase-race/#results.
Questions or Comments?
Check out the FAQ page from WTRL. And you may also post questions or comments below!
Raced in this event this morning 7:20 am EST and I have to say this was the best racing I’ve ever been in on Zwift, the auto cat was perfect and really done well.
Amazing idea from WTRL! Really looking forward to this. The uptake indicates some really broad support across the community.
Any idea how ranking points work in a chase race? If the ‘E’ group doesn’t catch the ‘D’ group, do those D riders get a boatload of ranking points? Or are ranking points only calculated within a given group, without regard to the other categories? Or are ranking points not awarded at all?
I wish all races adopted the kit idea. While the mini map colours and nearby Zwifters list can give you an idea, you want to be able to quickly identify your category competition within a mixed bunch.
I signed up for one of these races this evening and it put me in D category. My minimum category on ZwiftPower is C, I raced in C4 in the last ZRL classics series, and I’m not even the fastest person in the D group. It looks like the fastest D riders overlap with the slowest B riders, and the fastest in C has a 4.5 w/kg 20 minute power. Maybe I’m in the lower category because I haven’t raced in a couple months? I figure we’re gonna get smoked anyway since there are currently only about 50 people in D, and over 150 in both B and C. Seems like autocat could be improved to better balance the group sizes too, but I guess that’s difficult when there’s no way to tell how many people will sign up.
The time off from racing affects it, what I read is the auto cat looks at last 30 days, I’m a dead last or maybe if lucky mid pack B racer but really feel I am C cat, it’s more fun since I feel I could never win a B Race but did race ZRL as a B that was also fun but this seemed more balanced and the results definitely look like fair racing, time will tell if this auto cat is the answer to sandbaggery!
The cats in the chase races have no correlation to the ZwiftPower cats and to w/kg numbers, but they seem to work well.
In my race, three riders starting in the “C pen” finished within one second of each other, putting out powers of 3.8, 2.7 and 3.0w/kg respectively.
1) Uptake is huge, hopefully a signal to ZHQ on the value the community puts on Autocat. Shame it has to be outsourced. WTRL does an awesome job, but the system should be more organizer agnostic.
2) Looks like the B’s are winning these things so far. Including Eric Min, who appears to be a very good B racer, who knew?
Not sure about other races but in mine, the Bs caught the Cs with just over 1km to go, which I thought was pretty darn close.
B and C are the strongest groups for these kinds of events, because they have the most riders and also have many riders with weight over 90 kg. who can push big Watts but don’t have high W/kg.
“Signing up is dead simple if you already have WTRL.racing and ZwiftPower.com accounts. Simply visit wtrl.racing/zracing-chase-race/#registration, log in, and click the event you want to join”
This is the problem with zwift racing. Its so neglected that this is considered simple.
It should be, click on the event on companion app. Done.
I love racing on zwift, its why I use the platform but currently the best racing has to be done by a process of…. Hunt around for a racing league by searching facebook, going on youtube. Joint the facebook page, ask to be included, sign up to a discord channel, race, check the actual results on facebook or ZP or a mix of the two. Its like a secret underworld
yeah WTRL is a mess; its why i gave up on it
I must be too stupid, for me no races show up when I clicked on sign in. I have a zwift, a zwift connected Zwiftpower account and now I registered at WTRL. Don’t know what is wrong…
same for me …
Is there a schedule of races? Which course is next?
+1
I know that my Zwift ID is correct, but after creating a WTRL account, it doesn’t seem to import my info or offer any events,
What happened to week two? Page is blank on WTRL
Please tell me how to get the category jersey kit.