Katie...
I've never met you, but that was a nice message... and way to go on
competing in Open.
My .02 is that Ladies classes are great on a local level... and great on a
National level until folks like Katie, Marinus, etc, need the greater
challenge of Open. Having the ability to choose between the two is a great
thing.
My wife just recently started autocrossing... I don't think she'd mind
running either Ladies or Open, but for her, the Ladies classes were an
unintimidating start to a sport that can be intimidating at first (re: sea
of cones). I honestly think it helped her get more comfortable with the
sport more quickly.
Like one of the other posters said, maybe try to shorten the banquet some
other way... I don't know. I'm one of those "rookies" that's been
autocrossing for more than a decade but has not made it to Kansas yet.
But next year is a distinct possibility to go to Topeka. And I would hate to
see my wife's ability to choose what class she wanted to run in taken away.
Call it powerdpuff if you want... but we should be including as many people
as possible, not being exclusionary.
--Dave
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