Racing up a category

I was under the impression that you could still race up a Zwift Racing Sore category?
A mate (564 ) wants to enter an advanced race (650+) but the option is greyed out for him.
He’s got the legs for it, but just doesn’t Zwift that much so doesn’t have a high score.
Is this race not open to him?

They closed the advance races to riders with ZRS below 650 to prevent people from deliberately tanking their score
This occurred several updates ago.

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But I thought it was done on 5-minute power now anyway?
How annoying

for a seed score yes, then you can go 15% lower, and people were entering higher cat races, coming in last and their score would go way down. Then they can enter lower cat races, effectively sandbagging.

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Now you have to earn the right to be there.

The “advanced” races are only the ZRacing events. Nearly every other race will not have that restriction, so it can be done. Smaller fields in community races also result in larger score increases so if he has the legs and does some community races, he will get to 650+ faster that way.

Thanks for the answers all - this makes some kind of sense.

If your friend’s ability is true, just give him 5 minutes maximum effort.
That is the shortest way. It only takes one ride.

If he’s capable, he’ll at least do a time attack on a real world hill, right?
Go for the KoM or top 10 on Strava.
Just let them do that training on Zwift.
Just let them ride the hills at max effort on the London course.
If he can get a PWR of 5.5x5 minutes or so, he will score enough to get into the advanced races.
And if he is that good, he will stay in the lead group until the last hill of the after party race.
If he is good enough.