BB wrote:
Rules issues aside, Parowan is not a good site or contest for someone
who does not have a lot of mountain cross country experience. There
will be a full grid of hard-charging national-level pilots, high
altitude downwind takeoffs, big tasks over spikey terrain. I would not
advise this as a first contest for someone with a fresh silver badge.
It will either be scary or discouraging.

Region 9 should hold a regional at a local, familiar site, just like
the other regions. If noone else does it, the pilots should organize
one! If no true "regional" happens, new pilots from Region 9 should
travel to nearby regions. The Hobbs regional, the air sailing sports
contest, or the region 12 contest at Warner springs are all great
places to go for a first contest.

If region 9 isn't producing a true regional, I'm not sure adding a
layer of hoops for the Parowan organizers to go through will help.

Note the super-regional can reserve 0-50% slots for in region, it can
do this differently for different classes, and it can use some inverse
seeding in sports. From the explanation on the SSA webpage: "We want
to give organizers latitude to create the most successful contest."
So the contest organizers can think about all these issues and create
the structure that works the best for their particular site and
region.

John Cochrane

I don't particularly like the new super regional rule. May be OK when
there are other nearby regionals, but that almost never happens out here
in Region 9. From Denver, Parowan is 500 miles and the next closest
regional contest is often 1000 road miles. It is our local contest.

The die hard, experienced Region 9 contest pilots will still likely get
in if its a super regional. The real newbies may also get in if any
slots are available for reverse seeding. But that will leave a bunch of
pilots that have tried racing and liked it, but did not score very well,
with no place to go race within a days drive. Does not seem like the
best interest of the sport to allow experienced out of region pilots to
bump local want to be's from their only available venue. That goes
against the point of the regional contest system in the first place.

But then even if the new proposed rule is approved, it is still up to
the organizers whether they want their contest to be a super regional or
not. Its an option, not a requirement. We'll have to wait and see, but
I'm sure they will get pressure from both sides, which will make the job
a whole lot less fun.

So, if Parowan does go "Super", is there any interest out there in
organizing or flying in a "reliever" regional on the eastern edge of the
Rockies?

Its good to live in Region 9, where everyone wants to take their soaring
vacation

-Dave Leonard