Establishing Club Class/Too Many Nationals/Not Enough Competitors

In our discussions here on whether or not too add Club Class to the
list of competitions held in the U.S., the main sticking point seems
to be the effect on adding a burden to place yet another contest at
dwindling contest sites. This should be a real concern for all
classes, not just if we add Club Class to the mix. Just finding sites
to hsot the current 7 classes is tricky and often fraught with
overtones of snobbery (i.e. why would Open 's ever fly with World
Class...)

If it makes sense to burden the Contest Site Comittee with placing an
Open Class and World Class National Championship that generally
average between 5-15 truely in-class gliders, then why is Club Class
being discriminated against when it may only have 11 or more gliders?
Maybe Club would attract more than that - maybe much more. Then which
classes look untennable?

The facts are this: There are fewer and fewer contest sites willing
and able to host a nationals, fewer and fewer contest organizers who
are willing to put in the effort to continue sites or establish new
sites, and fewer and fewer new contest pilots being attracted to
competition, let alone higher competion. We need to change the current
paradigm.

If may offer the Rules Committee a proposal for consideration in
future years: I beleive we need to re-structure the US contest scene
to make it possible to nurture the new contest pilot at the regional
level, add to the luster of some large, already largely established
super-regionals, and provide for better/more attractive racing at the
highest levels. Here are my thoughts - fire away, my flame shields are
up and running...

1) Consider the mandatory siting of two contests per contest site each
year (i.e. Open/18-m, 15-m/Std, Sports/Club, 1-26/World) 4 contest
sites needed each year - down from a possible 7 or 8, if we add Club
Class

- Yes, the "farmer and rancher" may not get along, but wouldn't
completely full contests go a long way to making the organizers view
the immense effort as more justified AND toward getting a true
national champion from pilots who have had to truely qualify to get
in? Contests need a large enough critical mass for success, both $-
wise and competition-wise, THis may be one way to assure that going
forward.
- Along with this, possibly increase the number of pilots at any one
site from 65 to 70, and then give priority entry to 35/35 of each
class until the priority deadline, then take those on the waiting list
from the highest ranked competitors?
- Even if we add Club Class, we actually decrease the numbers of
nationals that have to find homes each year from 7 now to 4.
- Plus, it would mean that the top 35 pilots (more or less) in any one
class must be ranked high enough to gain entry into Nationals, which
after all is a prestige event, and deliver a true national champion
(i.e. there are no more "scrubs" because those pilots have other
venues open to them for high-level competition (i.e. Super Regional
Championships - see below)

2) Consider establishing an official Eastern Regional Championship and
a Western Regional Championship.

- Two super regionals like this already exist (Parowan (West) and
Perry (East) and you could throw in some bids by Mifflin, Montague,
etc. to move the super-regional around the regions.
- For ease of scoring and organizing: These super-regionals might have
the same combined classes as are sited at nationals, only run them
handicapped such as may happen with 15-Std regional classes now.
- The numbers become a little tricky with a 65 (or even a little
higher) glider cap, but I bet this concept would ensure chock-full
contests of whatever size for the two sites named each year.

3) On top of sacctioning the above two concepts of nationals or
national-type competitions, consider awarding contest sites the right
to hold all four nationals each four year period (for example). I.e.
if the next four year cycle awarded contest to Mifflin, Montague,
Uvalde, and Albert Lea, the organizers of these contest sites would
commit to hosting all four nationals over the next four years.

- This might encourage new organizations to get in the game if they
know their huge efforts to get in the game inthe first place would be
rewarded with multiple, ongoing nationals.
- For existing contest organizers this might provide some certainty
that they will be able to host a nationals for the next four years and
encourage contest organizations to hold together for mor ethan one
year.
- The concpet here is to make our racing a circuit that is fixed in
four year (or whtever is palatable) increments.

4) Restrict existing Regional Contests to in-region competitors, or at
a minimum give super priority to in-region comeptitors regardless of
pilot ranking in all classes. AND then maybe give regionals organizers
the opportunity to test new concepts like multiple weekends or
multiple contest sites to name a regional champion.

- The regional level is where the many classes we alrady have makes
things tricky. What classes are organizers going to host? It might
just be left to the contest organizers to determine as entries come
in. Or organizers can host what they want. Or they could mimick super
regionsl type-classes (i.e. two merged with handicapped scoring ine
ach of the merged classes).

RC, please give the current structure of our Nationals, Super-
Regionals, Regionals a good look and see if we can't tweak or make
wholesale changes in the structure to acehieve what I think we all
want:

1) Good Fun, Comraderie and Racing
2) Rationale contest options (i.e. Montague is not a good option for
most east coast pilots, nor is MIfflin for Western pilots)
3) Opportunity for Newbies and clear ladder to higher level
competition for newbies
4) Truely meaningful races for National Championships
5) The best National Team selections possible - hopefully leading to a
new US World Champion

Sincerely and respectfully submitted,
Tim McAllister EY

Tim,

Thanks for taking a lot of time to make constructive suggestions for
improvement in the US competition soaring scene. UH and other committee
members check this forum and I'm sure they will discuss your ideas at the
annual committee meeting in November in Houston.

Following are some observations/questions on your summary suggestions.

RC, please give the current structure of our Nationals, Super-
Regionals, Regionals a good look and see if we can't tweak or make
wholesale changes in the structure to acehieve what I think we all
want:

1) Good Fun, Comraderie and Racing

While we hope to experience "fun" and "comraderie" at contests this is
should be considered to be a desired accidental byproduct and not one of the
stated purposes in the rules. Soaring competition as controlled by SSA
sanctioned regional and national contests should continue to have as their
only objective the selection of the best pilots. If the Blackburns, Hudsons,
Spratts, Nixons and Kellermans add a dimension of hilarity to the pilots
meetings, great! Many find it worth the entry fee alone.

2) Rationale contest options (i.e. Montague is not a good option for
most east coast pilots, nor is MIfflin for Western pilots)

Are you saying Montague (and Ephrata), Mifflin (and Elmira) are unsuitable
for hosting national contests due to the driving distances?

3) Opportunity for Newbies and clear ladder to higher level
competition for newbies

What would you add to the rules to achieve this? There are presently a
number of provisions in the rules and procedures that address this area.
Reverse seeding at "sold out" sports class contests and mentoring of new
pilots are two that come to mind.

4) Truely meaningful races for National Championships

What is not "meaningful' about nationals now and how would you change it. I
don't know anyone who has won a nationals that wasn't pretty proud of it.

5) The best National Team selections possible - hopefully leading to a
new US World Champion

If our objective is to send our best pilots to the world comps (WGC) the
present selection system seems about optimum except for the tinkering that
has been done to the select pilots for the Club WGC from our sports class.
For a couple reasons, all of which have nothing to do with selecting the
best pilot, we have reduced the odds of sending a winner. Pilots who have
been on a US team in an FAI class (Open, 18M, 15M, Sports) are excluded, as
are pilots who don't fly a glider meeting the handicap range of the WGC.
This means that the first six finishers at this year's sport nationals are
not eligible for the 2010 US Team.

I doubt that anyone who has flown against the winner, Rick Walters, would
rank him below the number seven finisher as the most likely to succeed at at
the 2010 Club WGC.

There may be compensating reasons for the modified selection process, but
let's not pretend they have anything to do with sending the pilot with the
best chance of bringing home the gold.

All the best Tim. Hope to see you at Parowan.

Karl Striedieck



Sincerely and respectfully submitted,
Tim McAllister EY

Hi

I've been following the thread for a while and a common theme seems to be
that 'organising a comp is difficult and a huge effort'. I am surprised
by this. In the UK pretty much every soaring club runs a annual comp to
BGA rules thereby qualifying their pilots for rating points which are used
for prioritising entry to Nationals comps which are run in FAI classes.

My club runs such a 'regionals' every year usually with an entry of
about 30, mostly club members. Some clubs get larger entries and split the
field into two classes around about a handicap of 98 (our club class
boundary).

The last two years these 9 day comps were run by just three people:
Director, Asst Director / Task Setter, and Scorer.

Modern tools make Met, Task Setting, and Scoring a complete doddle. We
already have 5 tugs on site and plenty of tuggies giving us the ability to
launch our field in about 30 mins.

All in all running a comp is little different from our normal Saturday
activity, only scored.

The bottom line is that, if comps are kept simple to run then every club
can have one and all pilots can experience a comp on their doorstep and
learn the trade.

Jim

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 07:52:27 +0000, Jim White wrote:

Hi

I've been following the thread for a while and a common theme seems to
be that 'organising a comp is difficult and a huge effort'. I am
surprised by this. In the UK pretty much every soaring club runs a
annual comp to BGA rules thereby qualifying their pilots for rating
points which are used for prioritising entry to Nationals comps which
are run in FAI classes.

Likewise.

I've been wondering if the Inter Club League (ICL) model would work in
the US or if clubs are just to far apart for it to be practical.

Explanation: The ICL is organised on regional grounds. Participating
clubs within a small part of the UK form each league. Several
competitions are spread through the season and points are totalled for
the year to determine the winning club. Each competition is a low key,
two day (weekend) event organised by each participating club in turn.
Task setting etc. isn't much more formal than you'd find during a club
Task Week. BGA national league handicapping is used, so any glider is
eligible: IIRC tasks have been flown in ASK-21s.

Competitor numbers are small too: there are three classes with one pilot
per club in each class, though this can be shared with a different pilot
flying each day. Pilots represent their club in only one or two
competitions during the year so almost everybody who's interested gets an
opportunity to fly. The classes are Novice, Intermediate and Pundit,
based on the pilot's cross country and competition experience, e.g. you
can only be a Novice if you haven't yet flown 300 km.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Jim White wrote:

I've been following the thread for a while and a common theme seems to be
that 'organising a comp is difficult and a huge effort'. I am surprised
by this. In the UK pretty much every soaring club runs a annual comp to
BGA rules thereby qualifying their pilots for rating points which are used
for prioritising entry to Nationals comps which are run in FAI classes.

Eh? Pretty much every club? In my time I have flown regularly at
(counts on fingers) six UK gliding clubs of various sizes. Of these
only the second largest - Yorkshire GC - ran an annual competation,
and that was the northern regionals so not really a club competition
at all.

The bottom line is that, if comps are kept simple to run then every club
can have one and all pilots can experience a comp on their doorstep and
learn the trade.

I wonder what proportion of UK pilots are interested in competition.
I'd be surprised if it was as high as 10% of Silver Cs...

Ian

Nicest thing about soaring - there are so many peaks.

If you look at pushing the limits you could argue that soaring has many high achievers -
1] Racing pilots are the elite. Fly long distances at high speed in any weather. Very technical in weather analysis ,
wing loading, reading the terrain. Maximising the performance of their aircraft. Applying sports psychology. Handle
congestion in gaggles and at turnpoints.
2] Expedition pilots are the elite. Fly unbelievable distances at warp speed, or to extreme altitudes in all sorts of
kit. Constantly seek out new experiences. Ditto on the rest.
3] Instructors are the elite. Teach and you really learn your subject. Dedication and wide knowledge required, as well
as being the most demanding on people skills in soaring (unusual skill)
4] Loners looking for badges or records (formal or personal) constantly seeking to exceed previous achievement -
whatever that may be.
5] Pilots who make the club work more than they fly. Tuggies, constantly trying to improve the turnaround, and drop the
glider in the best lift, and maintenance types and met specialists, ground crew etc. Without them the rest would have a
lot harder time.

So - contest pilots are just one more subset of soaring = true.
Does it matter what percentage of soaring pilots represented. Well - yes because there has to be critical mass in racing
to make it practical. My experience is that the interest in racing is growing.

I am not naturally fast - my main contribution to a contest is making up numbers, and helping out where I can.
Personally I go and learn more in a week than since the previous contest each time. Maybe when I get less timid I will
be competitive - till then it is a lot of fun and a lot of experience in condensed form.

Ian wrote:

Jim White wrote:

I've been following the thread for a while and a common theme seems to be
that 'organising a comp is difficult and a huge effort'. I am surprised
by this. In the UK pretty much every soaring club runs a annual comp to
BGA rules thereby qualifying their pilots for rating points which are used
for prioritising entry to Nationals comps which are run in FAI classes.

Eh? Pretty much every club? In my time I have flown regularly at
(counts on fingers) six UK gliding clubs of various sizes. Of these
only the second largest - Yorkshire GC - ran an annual competation,
and that was the northern regionals so not really a club competition
at all.

The bottom line is that, if comps are kept simple to run then every club
can have one and all pilots can experience a comp on their doorstep and
learn the trade.

I wonder what proportion of UK pilots are interested in competition.
I'd be surprised if it was as high as 10% of Silver Cs...

Ian

Jim White wrote:
In the UK pretty much every soaring club runs a annual comp to BGA
rules thereby qualifying their pilots for rating points which are used for
prioritising entry to Nationals comps which are run in FAI classes.

Ian wrote
Eh? Pretty much every club? In my time I have flown regularly at (counts
on fingers) six UK gliding clubs of various sizes. Of these only the second
largest - Yorkshire GC - ran an annual competation, and that was the
northern regionals so not really a club competition at all.

There are only two types of rated comp in the UK Nationals and Regionals,
so if a club wants to run a rated comp that's not a Nationals it is a
'Regionals'.

In 2008 'regional' competitions were run at Tibenham, Bidford, Booker,
Bicester, Gransden Lodge, Husbands Bosworth, Dunstable, and Lasham.

There were Nationals comps run in every FAI class: Standards, 15M, 18M,
Open, 20M 2 seat, and Club as well as Nationals standard comps in Madrid
(UK Overseas), The Juniors, and a Grand Prix. All of these had places
available to late entrants.

In addition there was Competition Enterprise run at North Hill and The
Mountain Soaring Competition at Aboyne. All in all 16 rated comps and 3
others involving XC racing.

Ian wrote
I wonder what proportion of UK pilots are interested in competition.
I'd be surprised if it was as high as 10% of Silver Cs...

In 2008 580 pilots had a competition licence and rating points. I am
afraid I do not know how many active Silver C pilots there are.

Jim

If our objective is to send our best pilots to the world comps (WGC) the
present selection system seems about optimum except for the tinkering that
has been done to the select pilots for the Club WGC from our sports class.
For a couple reasons, all of which have nothing to do with selecting the
best pilot, we have reduced the odds of sending a winner. Pilots who have
been on a US team in an FAI class (Open, 18M, 15M, Sports) are excluded, as
are pilots who don't fly a glider meeting the handicap range of the WGC.
This means that the first six finishers at this year's sport nationals are
not eligible for the 2010 US Team.

I doubt that anyone who has flown against the winner, Rick Walters, would
rank him below the number seven finisher as the most likely to succeed at at
the 2010 Club WGC.

There may be compensating reasons for the modified selection process, but
let's not pretend they have anything to do with sending the pilot with the
best chance of bringing home the gold.

I'm not sure I believe that having a dedicated Club Class Nationals
achieves many, if any, objectives that I consider important to the
sport. The evidence from past Sports Class Nationals and many
Regionals seems to strongly support the notion that the current
handicapping system works well enough to ensure that the most capable
pilots rise to the top of the scoresheet irrespective of the type of
glider they fly. When you consider that team selection goes to pilots
flying club class gliders already it seems that the logic for a
separate nationals is even thinner. I'm not sure I agree with the idea
of restricting the club class pilot selection this way is the best
idea - but I'm willing to go along. We just need to admit that we are
doing it to get more people exposure to WGC - not because we really
want to win. I reject the idea that a narrower range of handicaps
helps pick a pilot with a better chance of winning a world
championship - the number of pilots racing club class equipment is
just too small in the US. I am suspicious of the contention that lack
of a club class (as opposed to the current sports class) is holding
down the number of pilots getting into racing. It's worth testing, but
I think you'd see a disproportionate proportion of club-class pilots
on the US OLC if there were a lot of pent-up interest that was not
being met by sports class.

On the idea of combining Nationals - some of this happens now.
Frankly, I think it is more important to have a full field of top
pilots at national contests than to ensure a narrow range of glider
performance - particularly in handicapped meets. Moreover I think it
is critical that we offer a contest framework by which national-
caliber pilots can test their mettle each year without having to drive
4-6,000 miles round trip - though certainly some will. The fact that a
significant number of competitors in FAI class nationals are flying
gliders from a different class demonstrates that many pilots are
similarly motivated. One mechanism currently in place to ensure a
nearby place to race each year is to rotate nationals regionally.
Super Regionals help too. One thing I think we should try to avoid is
pairing like-class nationals at the same venue. I prefer offering a
pilot whose class is having nationals on an opposite coast the option
to step up one class in order to stay more "local" every other year
(i.e. Std to 15M, 15M to 18M and 18M to Open). It seems like this has
at least in part been in the minds of the powers that be. Under Tim's
idea of pairing up nationals I would argue more for pairing Std with
18M and 15M with Open so that irrespective of where you live there is
a nearby FAI nationals each year that you could fly in and be
reasonably competitive.

9B

I'll try to be more hilarious in future posts ;-)

Karl:

Thanks for the constructive critiscism. Just a few answers to your
points:

1) I totally agree that the purpose of our contest rules and contests
themselves should be geared toward the selection of the best pilots
from among the population of racing pilots. Period, end of discussion.
By being a little bit "warm and fuzzy" with my goals I was trying to
soften my proposals a little bit.

My real feeling is that our contests in general, but specifically
nationals, should never be a mere "easy chance to race" or a "racing
vacation." US national contests should be aimed at determining the
best of the best. If you are going to the US nationals in any class,
you should be going because you have a legitimate chance to place well
(or have aspiratioins of acheiving that goal in time) AND that you
have the fire to really compete against the best of the best so that
we, as a cummunity, may select a national champion in each class each
year.

By restricting the number of pilot slots available at any particular
nationals site (35/35) my thinking was to make the entry into and
caliber of any particular nationals more prestigious/elite. If I have
my facts correct, not just anyone can show up at a German nationals -
you have to qulaify to get in (i.e. have a top 35 pilot raninking in
class). I think it should be so here in the U.S. But we would have to
go at this goal relatively slowly so we did not shock the system. Or
not!

AND, hopefully, this would result in cosnsitently full contests
(65-70) for every nationals held, east or west, north or south. This
would be a boon to contest organizers I am sure and maybe spur new
organizations to get on board.

2) No, Montague and Mifflin are SUPERB Nationals sites and should
absolutely be bidding for nationals as long as the contest
organizations can be kept together and motivated to put them on. If
you are an elite racing pilot hoping to make the US Team or to develop
your racing skills to the level of US Team pilots, you should be
willing to drive to the very corners of the US, every year, to make
this goal of yours a reality. My only point was that the current super-
regionals like Perry, Parowan have their place in this envisaged
system (as maybe East/West Championships - not the level of US
Nationals, but somehow ranked above the regional contest level) and
can take up some of the demand for "racing vacations" and getting
together with soaring friends as the sole goal of attending a
nationals for some.

3) It is not so much the rules that need massive change. But the RC
should take a stronger line on some of its "suggestions" and make them
into rules and mandate their usage, even if only for 1 year. For
example, if the RC would place some restrictions on entry to nationals
(be it limiting number through double sited contests, or whatever),
the level of competition might rise. If the RC mandated that the
winners of regionals and the East & West contest winners gained
automatic entry to nationals, there would be something concrete to aim
for by those going up the ladder from newbie to racer, to beteter raer
to national champion hopeful. The RC tried to add Windicapping to
sports class a few years ago. No one did it becasue it was not a
mandate but rather a suggestion. Is it any wonder the concpet was neot
tried and the idea was abandoned. If you do not hold contest
organizers feet to the coals to neforce changes in ruels or provide
incentives to contest pilots to follow certain actions, then it will
never happen. I wouldlike to see the RC be a little more activist in
trying to reverse the trends we all see but seem powerless as
individuals to stop.

4) To make it to the top of ANY medal stand is a tremendous honor and
acheivement. I did not mean to lessen anyone's national championship.
However, the "meaningfullness" of a National Championship is directly
linked, in my mind, to the quality of the competition - the entire
competition.When you are in a contest and many, many pilots are
multiple thousands of points behind the leaders you have to wonder if
those pilots are there to race? Yes, bad luck happens under our
scoring ssytem - I've fallen prey to that myself lately.However, if
the entire US racing community can only muster maybe 10 pilots in each
class to be within 1,000 points (or so) of the leaders at the end of a
10 day nationals, then is the top being really pushed. Restricting the
number of pilots per class at my so-called "double nationals" might be
one way to make this happen. By having only the top 35 standard and
top 35 15-m drivers (for just one example) at a co-located nationals,
every pilot would have had to race his way in by their high pilot
ranking or winning a regionals or east/west contest. I can not see how
the level of comeptition woudl not go up.

5) I agree that our WGC Pilot selection is really as fair as we can
make it given the current limitations of time, distance, and money in
our giant country. It levels the playing field between east and west
coast pilots unwilling to make the drive across the country, Further
it avoids the political infighting associated with voting for pilots
or the various other ways other teams pick their pilots. But then
maybe we need to open up discussions at the RC-level and US Team-level
(ABD betweenthe two) to develop a system of racing at Nationals and
team selection so that we may bring home the gold at future worlds?

I am not the best thinker of the nuts and bolts of implementation,
that is what the folks on the RC seem to be best at. But I would love
to see some "out-of-the box" strategic thinking that will improve
racing year to year in all classes AND get our best team tot he WGC's.

My modified goals for a revised contest system:
- Full Contests (for organizers for competitors).
- Higher level of/Best possible competition at every Nationals.
- Better competiton at new East & West Championship Contests (winners
get automatic entry to "their" nationals).
- Continued relaxed nature of Regionals, limited to in region
competitors or maybe adjoining regions competitors, encouraging
newbies and local champions.

Thanks for your citicisms Karl and I hope this spurs some high-level
debate. We too hope to get to Parowan soon as well. But given limited
time and money combined with distance...

Tim McAllister EY

On Sep 26, 3:20*pm, "Karl Striedieck" wrote:
Tim,

Thanks for taking a lot of time to make constructive suggestions for
improvement in the US competition soaring scene. UH and other committee
members check this forum and I'm sure they will discuss your ideas at the
annual committee meeting in November in Houston.

Following are some observations/questions on your summary suggestions.



RC, please give the current structure of our Nationals, Super-
Regionals, Regionals a good look and see if we can't tweak or make
wholesale changes in the structure to acehieve what I think we all
want:

1) Good Fun, Comraderie and Racing

While we hope to experience "fun" and "comraderie" at contests this is
should be considered to be a desired accidental byproduct and not one of the
stated purposes in the rules. Soaring competition as controlled by SSA
sanctioned regional and national contests should continue to have as their
only objective the selection of the best pilots. If the Blackburns, Hudsons,
Spratts, Nixons and Kellermans add a dimension of hilarity to the pilots
meetings, great! Many find it worth the entry fee alone.

2) Rationale contest options (i.e. Montague is not a good option for
most east coast pilots, nor is MIfflin for Western pilots)

Are you saying Montague (and Ephrata), Mifflin (and Elmira) are unsuitable
for hosting national contests due to the driving distances?

3) Opportunity for Newbies and clear ladder to higher level
competition for newbies

What would you add to the rules to achieve this? There are presently a
number of provisions in the rules and procedures that address this area.
Reverse seeding at "sold out" sports class contests and mentoring of new
pilots are two that come to mind.

4) Truely meaningful races for National Championships

What is not "meaningful' about nationals now and how would you change it. *I
don't know anyone who has won a nationals that wasn't pretty proud of it.

5) The best National Team selections possible - hopefully leading to a
new US World Champion

If our objective is to send our best pilots to the world comps (WGC) the
present selection system seems about optimum except for the tinkering that
has been done to the select pilots for the Club WGC from our sports class..
For a couple reasons, all of which have nothing to do with selecting the
best pilot, we have reduced the odds of sending a winner. Pilots who have
been on a US team in an FAI class (Open, 18M, 15M, Sports) are excluded, as
are pilots who don't fly a glider meeting the handicap range of the WGC.
This means that the first six finishers at this year's sport nationals are
not eligible for the 2010 US Team.

I doubt that anyone who has flown against the winner, Rick Walters, would
rank him below the number seven finisher as the most likely to succeed at at
the 2010 Club WGC.

There may be compensating reasons for the modified selection process, but
let's not pretend they have anything to do with sending the pilot with the
best chance of bringing home the gold.

All the best Tim. Hope to see you at Parowan.

Karl Striedieck





Sincerely and respectfully submitted,
Tim McAllister EY- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Since the topic of travel / distance (in the USA) and lots of club
competitions (in the BGA) came up, let me ask this:

1) UK pilots: Can you actually take enough time off work and such to
compete in many of these 7 - 9 day competitions each year? Or do
folks still only go to 1 or 2 apiece?

2) USA pilots: If more Regionals were added, could you actually _go_
to a greater number of Regionals each year?

I've talked about this in another thread, but it seems to me that a
big factor in competition attendance is time-off-work and/or time-away-
from-family... At least for us non-retired pilots (read: young-punks /
whipper-snappers)! A week is a long time to be gone, especially if
you're trying to do it several times each year. This is why I brought
up the subject of shorter club/casual competitions in another thread -
it seems like a better way to get newbies into competition and to get
local clubs doing some fun-and-challenging flying... but I don't want
to hijack this thread here.

Let me just conclude with this question: Is there a consensus among
pilots about the primary purpose of Regionals? Is it to introduce new
people to competitive flying, is it to support "fun" contest-flying,
or is it a part of the "elimination" / ranking process to pick a US
Team?

Pick a primary purpose/goal and shape the event around that. If other
events are required to meet other needs, then organize those events
around that other particular goal. A competition can certainly be
both fun AND tough, but if you try to make one event all-things-to-all-
people its just going to be a mess...

--Noel