I can definitely agree about cash prizes, at least anything substantial... those are pretty rare even in the 1,2 fields - enough so that we still tend to make a big deal out of it when the cash for the women equals the men (the race my team puts on always tries to do this - the team's sponsors put up enough to equal what the promoter pays out to the men). There's Exergy in Idaho who has intentionally set out to promote women and put up the money and Baker Stage Race in Oregon, where a local woman business owner puts up the money to match the men for the 1,2's at least.

There are master's classifications - at least for the state championship races and most TT's. There's a caveat here - the masters are not necessarily *slower* than the non-masters.... If you are given a choice to race master B's or 4's you may find the B's field to be a little stacked with 50+ 1,2's

No one enjoys combined crits - the 1,2's usually make them hot and fast at the beginning to intentionally drop the 4's because they don't usually want them there. The 4's get a couple of laps and get pulled - no fun either. The rare strong ones that can hang, generally aren't experienced enough to handle the tight packs and the cornering and can cause chaos. These are the girls who often get alienated because they get yelled at - a whole lot.... They start thinking that bike racers are bunch of stuck up b*s, just trying to boss them around. I've seen very young ones that are still pretty emotionally immature and still at that stage where they feel like they are immortal, really not understand that they are a danger - they just think the other women are jealous of how strong they are and trying to keep them from winning. It's not rare to see these girls quit too - when they might with a little experience and coaching be able to be quite good.

I think part of the appeal of cyclocross is that no one gets left behind - it may sting a bit if you get lapped, but it's nothing like having that follow car pull away in a road race and then you are on your own. They do have more separation in the categories too (the last one I went to had 1,2's 3's Master 3's 4's, Master 4's Singlespeed - and maybe more to choose from). With timing chips (which we are using out here) it's not too hard to separate out the races, even though they are all out on course at roughly the same time. The promoters can basically run as many fields as they please at 5 min intervals. There's not as many officials needed, no cars and no dealing with time limits on how long roads can be "closed". The prizes for some categories aren't exactly anything to write home about - oatmeal was a series prize, but hey it's something (and I think it was the same for the boys).