It's Cyclocross, Y'All: A Chat with the Nash Dash Race Promoter

There's a new UCI race in Georgia this weekend and we got the story about the new race on the block

Way back at the beginning of the season, we peeped a new race called EPTC Cross taking place near Atlanta during the first weekend of December and collectively wondered what that was all about. After all, the domestic UCI calendar has been contracting, not expanding, so a new race kid on the block was interesting!

Fortuitously, Mike Barman, the race director of the new Georgia race was in Roanoke earlier this year, and I got an opportunity to chat with him about his race.

The race takes place at Nash Farm Park in Hampton, Georgia, which is located about 30 minutes south of the Atlanta Airport—it also happens to be a Civil War battlefield site, which of course I asked questions about! The race has rebranded to the Nash Dash since our chat, so that is the name you will be seeing for the coming week.

Becoming a UCI race was not an overnight thing for the Nash Dash. Barman has experience as a race promoter for the Athens Twilight Criterium, and he has been working on bringing a UCI cyclocross race to Georgia for the last 5-6 years. Things finally feel into place this year with the open weekend on the calendar and a good spot the weekend before Louisville Nationals.

Read on for my chat with Barman about the Nash Dash.

Interview: Mike Barman, Nash Dash Race Director

Zach Schuster: I am here with Mike Barman. You are the newest UCI race promoter in the U.S. Let's start from the beginning. The race is in Georgia. Where is Hampton, Georgia? Where are we going?

Mike Barman: Hampton, Georgia is about 30 miles south of the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. It's farmland and actually a battlefield the county has turned into a park. They do Collegiate cross-country running races there. We've used the park for about six years now, and we've had some great success. We feel like now we're ready to make that next step to the UCI level, which we've been working on for a number of years.

Zach Schuster: Is that the Civil War or the Revolutionary War?

Mike Barman: Civil War.

Zach Schuster: Was this during the Georgia Campaign?

Mike Barman: Yes. Lovejoy Junction, as it was called at the time of the Civil War, is about two miles away, and so all that farmland that was there had quite a bit of cavalry all over it. Don't bring your metal detector, it's not allowed. Don't try to find any artifacts during the race. They're not sure if a battle actually happened there for sure for sure. It could have been a few miles away.

Zach Schuster: I'm a Civil War buff, so I like it already. Two years ago when I went to Charm I did a day trip to Gettysburg. This speaks to me already.

Mike Barman: Not quite on that scale.

Zach Schuster: I saw you've had a race, you were the Georgia State Championships recently. The race started six years ago?

Mike Barman: The first year I actually put on a race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, but they sold the land I used for my 'cross race to the airport there, so we got kicked out of that venue. I was looking for something similar and this came up. One of my friends' daughters raced cross country there, and he let me know about it.

It's a fantastic venue for cyclocross. There's parking for 8 to 10 thousand vehicles. There's infrastructure, there are pavilions. It has a lot of rolling farmland, the course will go through some wooded areas. We go through the grass, we go through fields, and kind of work it all the way around.

Zach Schuster: So I knew the old race director of the Trek CX Cup for the longest time, and when Trek took it over, she was so excited because she got her life back. So why the hell do you want to be a UCI race promoter?

Mike Barman: I've been racing 'cross in Georgia since 2000, and not that we feel disrespected, but no one knows there is 'cross in Georgia. I'm also the race director for Athens Twilight during Speed Week, so this was just a next step for me. I do the sound and fencing at Hendersonville [NCGP], and I just think it's a great fit for Georgia and want to try it and see if the community wants to come out and support it.

Zach Schuster: Cyclocross. The South. Not necessarily something we think about a lot. Florida has a scene, I think.

Mike Barman: Unfortunately they haven't been racing as much as usual. A lot of those folks have sold their 'cross bikes. We talked to them, and they were like, 'I don't own a 'cross bike anymore.'

Zach Schuster: I've always lived in places with good 'cross scenes. I lived in Madison, then Minneapolis, and now Chicago. What's it like down there in a place not necessarily associated with cyclocross?

Mike Barman: It can kind of be thought of as Lord of the Flies style. Some of our courses aren't necessarily per the rules. Some of our courses are. We get a good balance of learning who some of the future rippers are. Matthew Crabbe [Junior 15-16 racer for Finkcraft Junior Cycling] has won a couple of National Championships. Thomas Turner won a [Masters] World Championship in Louisville, he's from Georgia.

There is some of a scene there, but we also travel around. We're mainly pretty small. We usually get about 250 to 300 riders per race.

Zach Schuster: That's not bad!

Mike Barman: Not a lot of them go to Hendersonville to do that race, or they don't go to Kings CX, which is about eight hours. Louisville is about six hours away. So we don't have many folks traveling, but we do have a lot of good stuff going on in Georgia and hopefully everyone can come down and see what we have and have a great time and get the legs open for Louisville.

Zach Schuster: It's a good spot on the calendar. Louisville is a border state, so it's not too far. We had an opening, and I think you're in a good spot.

Mike Barman: When Tara McCarthy was putting the ProCX schedule together, that date really opened up. She thought of me immediately and called me. I've only been working on it for five years, so it was nice to finally get invited to the club that wouldn't have me for so many years.

Zach Schuster: So this isn't something that just happened.

Mike Barman: I've been to every promoter meeting after Nationals for the last five or six years. They don't have them anymore, so now I'm afraid I'll get left off the Zoom call because I'm the new guy on the block. We're ecstatic to finally have the opportunity and get the chance to show what we can do.

Zach Schuster: I admire your persistence. It sounds like you really want to do it.

Mike Barman: Zach, you're calling me crazy.

Zach Schuster: I said persistent, ok.

Mike Barman: I know what that means.

Zach Schuster: If you're reading this, I think there is some good motivation to come down. It's awesome to see folks who want to host events and give it a whirl. I hope we can make it a thing.

Anything you're planning that's different, or is it about hosting an event and making sure the race goes off well?

Mike Barman: We've been working on the course. I've been mowing and working on the venue for five years now. They didn't let us do anything the first year. Now I have some leeway. There is a huge event pavilion that is going to be our semi-VIP area, so that will be the area where everything works from. We're looking at a sand pit on one side, a run-up on another. We go through some pretty technical wooded sections.

We're really lucky that we're able to mix farmland to woods to streams and all kinds of different things at one venue.

Zach Schuster: Have you talked to any of the other promoters seeking advice?

Mike Barman: I have been for years, but they didn't know why I was asking questions, so it wasn't really a direct ask. I've gone to Nationals the last five or six years and I work at Hendersonville each year. They had the National Championships at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. I was in Hartford last December.

Like most 'cross promoters I can't really travel during the season. I can't make it to the Trek Cup. It's hard or me to make it to Cincy. GO Cross here in September is good for me because it's easy to get to. Last year I was coming back from a criterium in Hartford, Connecticut, and I was able to stop here and watch the race for a day. So I feel like I have a good idea of what I'm doing, but we'll find out for real soon.

Zach Schuster: What have you been seeing that you like? Are there some things you're hoping to do with your race?

Mike Barman: As a slightly larger individual who doesn't necessarily care for climbing a whole lot, I prefer open courses where the weather is the extra added difficulty in the race. My courses always have huge, wide-open start/finishes. Hopefully there will be a huge headwind that just tears things apart. As a big guy from Florida, that's my favorite part of a race course.

Zach Schuster: That's kind of how Reno Nationals was. Everyone was like, "Grass crit, grass crit," but there were these huge straightaways with maybe a slight incline and groups were just getting ripped apart.

Mike Barman: Hopefully some echelons have to form before the first left-hand turn.

Zach Schuster: It wouldn't be cyclocross if I didn't ask about the weather. What's Georgia usually like in early December?

Mike Barman: December can be hit or miss, similar to Hendersonville. They've had snow and had the race canceled there and it's been 80 for two days without a lick of water for the whole weekend. Usually we have some sort of rain during the week or some part of the weekend, but it usually dries up.

The farmland is awesome for drainage; I've never seen anything that drains so well. Even though it can be slick and slower, it doesn't necessarily mean it's so muddy you need to bring five bikes with you.

Zach Schuster: Hopefully it won't Louisville.

Mike Barman: It doesn't peanut butter up like that. It's much more fair as far as how it gets wet.

Zach Schuster: I saw your shirt. What's the Nash Dash? I think it said EPTC, you track club, on the website.

Mike Barman: Nash Dash is the new marketing version of the race that we put together. We got inscripted very late. I didn't find out we'd be hosting a UCI race until July. Now I'm going to ask the UCI if they can change the name for me. We hope to at least do two or three years with this. Nash Dash is going to be the name of the race for the future.

Zach Schuster: Who's Nash? Who's Dashing?

Mike Barman: Nash Farms is where it takes place. Then we had to do something kind of fun and semi-Southern. There's y'all in some of the marketing and stuff. I didn't feel comfortable going that far though.

Zach Schuster: You're talking about having a wide-open race without peanut butter mud, we're talking about running. Your shirt has a rider carrying a bike.

Mike Barman: We've had people shoulder their bikes at Nash a few times.

Zach Schuster: Fair!