I'm not in the game so maybe this isn't an issue but my guess is races are too long. Fit everything in a week. Have Mon. be the practice day, race ends on Fri. Two days to drive in, two days to drive home. Of course you would lose more contests to weather and maybe luck makes a bigger contribution then consistency, but if a race can be done in one week of vacation time the value/time spent changes.
On Thursday, June 14, 2012 7:30:37 PM UTC-4, John Cochrane wrote:
My website has a copy of the article "The National Contest
Participation Dilemma" that appeared in this month's Soaring. I put
together a lot of numbers on contest participation, and tried to get
at some causes.

A few surprises: lots of new pilots show up, but they don't stick.
Pilots do not like to drive long distances. There are lots of contest-
capable gliders out there.

The article is meant to stir up discussion on what we should do,
including east/west nationals, mixed handicapped classes, picking team
members from outside "their" class, or (not in the article because I
hadn't heard of the idea at the time) having just one big nationals
with many small classes and multiple super-regional qualifiers.

Direct link
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john...ticipation.pdf

Webpage
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john...index.htm#misc

John Cochrane