According to the BBB there are complaints about this company going back to 2012.

BBB entry for Rapid Running Event Management

According to the report, more than 940 people registered and paid a total of $64,055 to take part in race on June 30, 2012, in Orchard Park, New York.

Yuuuuup.  That was the phantom 2012 inaugural "50 Yard Line Finish" HM that I did in 2013.  (It was taken over last-minute and put on by a local Good Guy who didn't even charge the people that got scammed by Rapid Running in 2012;  Eclipse Multisport then made it into a legit, annual event).

Dave Mason is a fucking scumbag and there's no place in Hell cool enough for him.

So was he scamming people for races that were also many states away from Indiana? Where was this phantom race located?

 

Oh, New York which is a race they mention in the article I think.

Yeah, Orchard Park is a suburb of Buffalo.  After that, he popped up in Wisconsin and a few other places to run the same game on a new set of unsuspecting people.

Damn.... well hopefully they finally get him/them and he gets the time he deserves or whatever it is they'll do.

Damaris, what do you think his punishment will/should be?

He put on a race here locally a couple of years ago, and while the race actually did go off, there were some major snafus.

Like promising water every two miles along a rail-to-trail course that doesn't have vehicle access between the starting point and Mile 5, and again until Mile 10. For an August half-marathon. He had never even been on the course, which had previously been used by another group for a half, until the day before the race. I was very glad I knew the area, knew it was unlikely they could follow through on that promise of water station, and carried my own. I also tried to tell anyone I saw before the start who had a bottle of water with them to hold onto it rather than leaving it behind.

I had questioned things from the beginning because his website promised "views of the Mississippi River," and while the trail does parallel the river, there is a 1/4-1/2 mile of trees between the two - you can't see a thing.

And he sent out a desperate plea for volunteers from the local running and tri clubs at 3 p.m. the day before the race.

I came through fine, the shirts were decent, plenty of food at the end - and he packed 4 water stations into the last three miles where there were more access points - but there were a lot of people who had a really rough time with high humidity and almost no water in the first 10 miles. If temps had been any higher (low 70s), it could have been a really bad situation.

so either he is a complete scam artist or a naive moron, or someone might have helped him during that race StepbyStep? Either way, he is definitely in the wrong.

Things like this is just another reason I will only dream of setting up races, there is just WAY TOO MUCH  that goes on behind the scenes of a race.

I'm really not sure which it is. I think our race was one of the first he did. And I honestly though he had disappeared after the New York one got canceled, but apparently he's still trying to make it work. Maybe he figured out that getting people to pay for registrations then backing out was easier than actually trying to put on an event.

F is a pretty bad grade

Steph, didn't he think that someday he'd be caught up in a lawsuit or something?