In a message dated 5/27/03 4:25:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
awhollis@swbell.net writes:
> > entry numbers. There were a lot of complaints at the time that having to
> > travel to a minimum of 3 events was a real hardship for some people,
> > depending on where they lived and how close those 3 events might be.
>
> The other difference then was that we had two fewer events. Adding two
> events to the schedule increases the number of new participants that will
> have at least the minimum number of events required to qualify for the
> Finale. I haven't done hard number analysis (Winchell?) but I'd guess that
> number to be at least 30 people.
I meant to include in my previous post that increasing the total number of
events in the series might reduce travel miles for some of those people for
whom that was a problem, but OTOH the extra added events this year are
away from the east and west coasts, and Pro's in the middle of the US
have historically drawn fewer entrants than "coastal" events.
>
> So, generally-speaking, adding events without increasing the qualifying
> standard for the Finale will cause problems. Changing the qulaifying
> standard can either be done by increasing the number of events that count,
> or by instituting some kind of "entitlement" standard as has been done this
> year.
>
> If you think about it, in a situation where one more event is required, the
> only folks that are going to try and do an extra event are those in a
> position for it to advance their position for the year-end. Someone who
> does two now, can already do a third to help. If they do three now, they
> can still just do three. But, if they are in a position to finish on the
> podium for the year, they'd likely figure out a way to attend a fourth
> event. So, in effect, you still get a year-end performance stratifier just
> because it takes a lot more effort to attend an extra event. Best of both
> worlds, IMHO.
>
I think part of the problem is that there are two mindsets at work here.
Some of us have been attending Pro's for many years and are willing and
able to do a lot of traveling in order to attend as many as 4 or 5 Pro's in a
season in pursuit of a championship (and a some of us simply enjoy the
format). OTOH, the *casual competitor* (for lack of a better term) who is
not willing or able to make the same committment of time and funds,
looks at the series in a different light. This is the entrant Howard was
trying to attract, IMO, by going to the 2/3 points format. His reasoning
was that more competitors who were very close to at least one Pro would
attend it and then travel to one more, rather than running just the nearby
Pro and not another one (or perhaps not even attend the nearby one as a
one-shot deal either). In theory this would get more total competitors into
the series. Whether this is one of the reasons for increased attendance
the last two seasons, I'm not sure. I'm certain there are several factors at
work there, and it's difficult to know what people's motivations are for
running
the series, sometimes even if you ask. :-)
And speaking to Andy's point above, there are probably a number of people
who have run only 2 events as a minimum, so having to run three might be
again beyond their travel budget. That makes going back to 3/4 a deal-
breaker for some folks. Also, one of the unintended consequences of the
old points format was that attendance usually suffered at the last couple of
events of the season as people who had already run 2 events and felt they
were out of contention for a high class finish at year-end would simply not
run a third event. Of course, this is probably happening with the current
format, too. Whether this would be better or worse with a larger number of
events is another question which cannot be easily answered.
GH
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