Brett, I for one, and I think everyone on these forums respect your (and "others") concerns and thoughts on this. I do not think, however, that the arguments you hear to support the idea are attempts to stifle your input on this. It has been posted here that to some it appears there are those who are at the apex of the Nats Champion contenders' list appear are not able to comprehend why others not in that category might be interested in competing at the Nats, either in the Advanced or Expert events. I know you abhor the charge of elitist, as I do, but there are suggestions to that effect.
Oh, now we are on that? You are acting on and accusing me of elitism on the assumption that my goal is to keep Expert out for personal emotional reasons, and I am coming up with bizarre excuses to justify it. I assure you, my reason is exactly and entirely what I stated above - that you are creating what will be, obviously to me, a redundant category and by doing so, making it more-or-less certain that Open will go away as soon as it becomes obvious to everyone else.
J/S/O is perfectly inclusive, there is no distinction between skill levels of the participants, and everyone has exactly the same opportunity to end up the National Champion and a Walker Trophy. Creating EXP at the Nats creates a category that absolutely prevents someone winning the National Championship (given that it means that 1st place in Expert is 25th overall) and absolutely prevents someone from winning the Walker Trophy (because they will never get a chance to fly for it by rule).
Which approach creates barriers to the big prize by making class distinctions and permits a, dare I say it, "Elite" category? Half the responses here talk about "Masters" class.
Repetitively stating that "This WILL happen, it was a 10:1 vote" is exactly and precisely a statement that this is no longer debatable and that everyone shall just go along without comments by decree, i.e. "Brett and Ted, shut the hell up". Either that, or it's rubbing our noses in the fact that our argument didn't carry the day. The fact that no one seems to be able to distinguish between discussion of the wisdom of the idea VS the implications and possible solutions to the fairly obvious logistical issues is clear in the completely non-responsive comments.
My recent comments have largely addressed the logistics and planning aspects of this, and possible approaches to dealing with it without having to "wing it" at the last minute. What I have gotten back is "You don't understand, we have already agreed to have Expert" - a fact which I am not debating. It's not a good idea but I see that we are going to go ahead with it anyway.
But since you asked - I will try again to explain why it seems like a bad idea.
Suppose you end up with maybe 20 EXP and 20 Open competitors, ignore ADV. I expect there will be a bump the first few years. That's more than the total entry this year in Open, so maybe mission accomplished. Are you going to take 10 people qualifying from each? Fine - we are now cutting out half the field during qualifying. We still have 20 people total on Friday, half the field for the Walker flyoff, and roughly the same workload, but twice the number of trophies, double the administration.
Of course, you could do as suggested above and still take 20 for "Top 20 Day" regardless of the entries. Now you *have* doubled every workload and made Qualifying a fun-fly/practice session.
Suppose, as I expect, in a few years you have more-or-less 15-15 people in each? It won't take long before someone notices that EXP and Open look redundant, or at least excessive. Add to that the possibility that there will be former National Champs flying Expert because they didn't build their own airplane, and it looks even more like that. Creating a class that takes your 30 people and puts them in one class together makes eminent sense.
At that point, the debate is which class to get rid of. You and Randy say you won't let it be Open, and if you think I am an elitist, wait till hear what you get called for eliminating people from competition because the airplane they bought to fly in the established Expert class is now going to be excluded. You think the anti-modeling crowd is aggressive beyond their numbers now, just wait the blood gets in the water from this one.
You clearly don't see it (or maybe you do...), but this appears to be a one-way decision, it's not reversible in any practical way. At best it's a transition state until the contest is strictly skill-classes with maybe a "Best Junior" and "Best Senior" picked out of it.
Another thing- the underlying theory is that there are a significant number of expert fliers that don't come to the NATs because they are uncompetitive in Open and they won't enter advanced, and that splitting it off gives them a category. Who does this attract? People who are only willing to go to the greatest contest in the world if they have a chance of winning something. They can participate now, just enter Open, so it must be about prizes. Which is exactly what you are accusing me of for some reason.
I haul my butt cross-country every time I can and I *know* that my chances aren't that good most of the time. I enjoyed the experience even the year I crashed before the first flight of qualifying and finished 55th. Hardly that I "appear are not able to comprehend why others not in that category might be interested in competing at the Nats", I would say. I don't appreciate the implications - I don't have to prove my dedication or seriousness about this event to anyone, not even you.
I also note that I was on the hook to be the ED in 2014 and 2015, but can't commit ahead of time that far right now. So I am hardly a casual observer/straphanger on the topic of the operation of the NATs.
I am actually trying to think through the issues that this decision (and yes, please don't tell me again that it is some immutable truth, I am well aware of it) and trying to offer some way of assisting the planning in lieu of me actually doing it. i would be happy to stick with that topic but everyone keeps trying instead to convince me it is a good idea instead.
Brett