Chainsaw dude, I just looked at your LM results compared to mine (different class) and we ran almost the identical same times. That was a tough race for me due to back problems and I had a crash, but crap happens in every race so its fair to compare. Fair Hill is pretty similar to LM in terms of terrain, so lets do a little comparison here. At the first FH race this year in April, I got 6th out of 34 in cat2 and my time was 1 minute faster than the 1st place cat 2 ss guy. My time would have put me in around 11-15 of 21 in Cat1 ss and maybe 8-9 of 14 in cat1 age group.
Now I know its completely idiotic to compare geared vs ss and different classes and what not, but it's not really that far off from the truth. That was a stupid fast course, where the top elites were turning 17mph avg speeds, but there were a lot of good sections for you ss dudes. The race this weekend is twice as hilly, but still nothing severe. The thing with the MASS races is that the top guys are crazy crazy fast and since the courses are generally not as rough as the h2h races, you get a lot of roadies, especially at fair hill type places where you can basically race on a cx bike if you wanted. But once you get past the top 5 or so guys (maybe top 10-12 in some age groups), it's not some super elite ultra racer league, just a normal race like anywhere else.