Chip I think you meant to ask "Is Contest flying dead " .

Not if some effort is put into promoting contests and making them
interesting, inexpensive and especially for the younger folks new to
contest flying, easy to participate in .

At our club, Central Indiana Soaring we have established a "Club
Contest" that can take place every x/c flying day of the year at our
field . So far this season we have had 6 contest days and 10 pilots
have participated ( out of a total club membership of around 65 ) .
There is no cost to members, there are 2 classes ( Advanced and
Beginners ) and the rules are simple . The idea was not entirely ours ,
in fact we copied a lot of the rules from the Chicago Glider Club's
successful contest system. You do need a "sparkplug" type to do the
scoring and e-mail out the results after each contest day - We have DT
who does a great job there .

The contest makes for a lot of extra enjoyment and discussion between
the members, certainly improves x/c flying skills and I firmly believe
will lead to more participation at Regional contests in the future.

To attract more pilots to Regional and National contests they need to
be motivated to spend the time and money to do that successfully -
Local Club contests that become interesting to new pilots stimulate
that motivation.

My 2 cents worth .

Ron (ZA).