My biggest beef with the AMA and the Nationals is that they are always held in one of the worst weather places in the country in the summer time. I still think the Nationals should be rotated to different parts of the country so they could actually be NATIONALS. Muncie is very convienient for the AMA, and not so convenient for most of the rest of the people in the country!
That's the AMA not the competition organization. The scheduling is done by WHO?
The NATS has been in the middle of the summer forever, primarily, because school was out and juniors could attend. I agree with you about having to drag yourself 2400 miles year after year, the two weeks required for me to attend was a big factor in not being able to attend this year (and 2010 and 2012). We all predicted that this would slowly turn into a big Midwest/east coast local contest at some point, and it's headed that way.
But, before that, the NATs itself was in some jeopardy, because the sport fliers screamed to high heaven every year about the cost of moving it around, and the budgets. It was becoming nearly impossible to find a site for the entire thing, and in many of those, it was compromised.
The scheduling has been moved around to accommodate CL, and most recently to move the RC Scale to another week (very early in the cycle) to avoid overflights after the fiasco we had in 2015 - at least partly at my urging/suggestion. The dates we had this time are the best I know of - much later and it gets into August, which is even more miserable.
BRETT you know dammed well I'm not talking about the Competition organization!
They are the ones responsible for the NATs, so if that's not what you meant, it was far from clear. The nitwit AMA EC members that you and I both have contempt for have nothing to do with the NATs, scheduling, dates, nothing.
Brett