You should know, but to edumacate/inform others........
We have several "local" North East sites that can do/have done "weekend contests".
Dansville, NY, HHSC in Elmira, Wurtsboro, NY, way back when, "little guys meets" in NJ and eastern PA. P3 and others also did those....

Yes, there is some room for this type of contest.
Yes, they tend to also do rookie camps. The older little guys meets were where I first did "contest flying" (turnpoint cameras, no GPS, very early electric Cambridge vario given to me from Raouf Ismail himself.....).

A handful of years ago, when I was more active on the contest scene, time was an issue. Contest season was about the same as our major work time and I was a senior field service guy, so I was on the road a LOT!
WHen work was slower, I could go skiing, but that wasn't contest flying.

Recently, well, I just haven't flown enough to make the basics "automatic", so I don't fly contests other than a day last season at Wurtsboro, as the second pilot in the ASK-21 with UH.