Changes to USA Nationals System

It is time for a major overhaul of the US Nationals system. With time
constraints and cost it is making the single national approach
outdated. We have discussed the idea of super regionals or multiple
nationals. I think it is time to seriously look at these
alternatives. We have to recognize that the country is nearly 3500
miles (6000 km) across. Traveling coast to coast is time and cost
prohibitive.

This thread is to kick off a discussion of alternatives. I will throw
out two possibilities and look forward to other ideas.

1. Two nationals in each class a year, one east and one west. The
points will be the same as our current nationals, 100 points to the
winner. We could reduce the nationals from 10 days to seven to make
it possible to fly in a week rather than taking two weeks for a
contest. These can be combined with a regional similar to Sports and
Region 11 this year.

2. Super regional system, points would be 96 to 98 for the winners.
This would encourage more pilots to fly and provide a place to have a
higher level of competition to improve the US soaring skills overall.
This years Region 9 at Parowan was highly competitive and I think it
pushes all the pilots to improve their skills. Super regionals would
be by seeding list similar to the nationals. Again the seven day
contest would work well for the Super Regionals.


I think we need to address the class creep issue as well soon. We
have too many classes, it is time to eliminate some classes. I vote
to kill World class and strongly consider the end of Open class and
1-26. That would put us down to four classes; Std, 15M, 18M and
Sports 9 (Club).