I was wondering that too. Maybe it is just because the economy in
California /west is weak so the locals did not show up much and few
people wanted to drive that far. I say this because here in the east
we have been oversubscribed on some races. The Regional in Perry SC
was at 65 contestant, bigger than many nationals, and then the GTA
race we had there was ~27 contestants [and closer to 40 on the weekend
that got rained out].

So it is odd to me that regionals are doing well and nationals poorly.

Maybe the Standard class is just getting weak. At some races the
standard class seems less competitive than 15m or Sports. Often Std
class seems more like a social team flying cub. I've seen several
races where a old generation glass glider flown unballasted is much
faster than the newest generation std class full of ballast with
experienced pilots.

Chris