Well it can go both ways, there certainly are those sandbaggers who find a good enough excuse to stay novice. On the flip side there are those who are bumped who maybe shouldn't have been. Walters son placed in quite a few races and wasn't bumped Walter protested that 14ish year old kid had no business racing against experts and wasn't mature enough to ride with them. And it's a very valid point, therefore he stayed novice another year, won a lot of races and was then promoted. Trey was never given the initial bump to end up on the expert list because Walter is on the inside and explained it before Treys name was ever on the list. Not everyone one else has that inside connection so their kid or their own adult name may end up on the list.

The protest allows them the chance to explain, hey, I was riding over my head all season just to get 5th, another year novice will allow me to tone it down Or I'll be changing platforms from SV to 1000 and the experts aren't the place to learn this, etc, etc. Yes there are plenty of sandbaggers that will do whatever they can to get trophies and contingency but there are also plenty of riders who show up to every round and simply don't crash and end in the points, are they expert material? maybe not but they should have the chance to explain what was obvious to them and the people making the decision didn't have a clue about. The whole protest process is there just for those people.

not sure if you realize, you aren't automatically kept novice if you protest either. There are plenty of people who protested and get shot down some way more vocal about it then others. Coffey, Henke, etc.