I honestly don't think that this is quite as complicated as some might
believe. The school year begins very early now (mid August for most) and so
many folks with school-aged children and/or teacher wives/crew (like myself)
decided not to go because of that. It was simply too late in the summer. A
snowball effect occurs then with other pilots seeing that there are not many
signed up so decide not to go themselves for various reasons related to this
(comraderie, level of competition). Even though it was super flying this
year, looking back over the past few years of contests at Montague there
were a fair number of landout days which makes going "crewless" a bit more
of a challenge too. In retrospect though I really wish I had gone since it
turned out to be some great flying!

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix