As someone new to competition, I have little to add about the subtleties of FAI vs. Sports Class rules. However, if the point of the petition is to grow participation in racing, Papa 3's data shows that this is almost irrelevant.

One's first few contests can be intimidating, so if we want to increase participation at races, one important way is to make pilots new to racing feel welcome and support them. I was fortunate at the Logan superregionals in 2011 and the Parowan Nationals this year to have several people go out of their way to help me (this is by no means a complete list):

EY Tim McAllister -- incredibly generous with his time as a mentor at Logan

BB John Cochrane -- at Logan, John retrieved me not once but twice after distant landouts (BTW this was when he was in 1st or 2nd, and if I'm not mistaken the Worlds were on the line. I am sure he would have preferred to be resting up for the next day rather than driving around Idaho at 11 pm)

KS Karl Striedieck -- went out of his way to offer kind words after I had a good day at Parowan, which meant more to me than my lucky 4th placing

TT Tim Taylor -- many, many helpful suggestions at Parowan

There has been some passionate discussion here about changing a few rules. The rules are important, especially where they affect safety. However, I would suggest that some portion of that passion and excitement be saved for the gliderport, helping somebody with unfamiliar tail letters and perhaps no crew. Actions and attitude like those I was fortunate enough to benefit from will do more to keep new pilots, even those flying club ships like my LS-4, coming back and thus growing racing, than arguments over cylinders vs. start lines and ATs vs. TATs.

Respectfully,
Mark Schmidt / L4

On Thursday, December 13, 2012 4:37:09 PM UTC-8, Papa3 wrote:
I then asked those who hadn't competed in a regionals or nationals to rank the reasons for non-participation from 8 defined reasons plus a 9th "other" reason. The three LEAST important inhibitors we

- Panel and instruments not competitive (i.e. flight computer and other geewhiz gadgetry)
- Glider not competitive
- Rules complexity