Reverup,
This was debated last year between myself a few others and even our resident Enduro Crack Head Bandit 9.
I am the Chairman for the first Texas State Enduro race scheduled to be held on February 24th. I have no option to run a Traditional time keeper because our lease property is being mined for sand & gravel and in Texas you have to have a minimum of 50 miles to have the time keeper event and I don't have that. But what I do have is some sick & nasty sections that will leave you asking for more.
With that being said let me take a moment of your time to talk about the differences between the two from a Chairmans/Workers point of view & a racers point of view.
Time keepers are great as long as nobody bitches about missing a turn or a check. I have seen it time & time again while racing and helping with a few events to where the AA rider was riding so damn fast and blew the turn & ran off course and got lost only to come back & protest that section because he was riding fast and missed the turn.
I guess it was the courses fault that he was riding at mach speed with his head tucked down and missed the turn. Myself I know what goes into putting on an event first hand. Between myself and one other newbie we have laid and cut new trail for the past 3 months every weekend rain or shine. I for one doubt that I will ever put on another event because nobody really cares anymore in my opinion.
The non time keepers keep the bitching down to a bare minimum. You don't need that many workers for checks. There are only test sections & a transition section to the next Start Control. Yes granted it does kind of suck but a lot of the folks I started riding with did not want to pay $500 for a computer. The non time keepers attract a lot of new folks to the enduro scene and in the future will hopefully boost our sport once again.
Me I really don't care as I just want to race & ride and have a good time.