Quote Originally Posted by Rab McNaught View Post
So, if I'm understanding this right, this highlights the problem we have. So you are saying that there was an incentive for you as a Novice...that's great. Would you agree that upon being promoted to Expert, you reduced your participation because contingency wasn't as readily available? I think what you are saying is that you would not have competed as a Novice if incentives weren't available?

Moving contingency rewards from Novice to Expert would encourage people to self-promote and move individuals forward in their riding and ultimately a bigger challenge. This is what we want - riders getting better and having increased incentives as they progress in their riding.

Right now, we have Slow Novice (not winning contingency) to Fast Novice (winning contingency) to Slow Expert (not winning contingency) to Fast Expert (winning contingency) with an uneven spread of opportunity as you progress. If incentives is a primary reason for someone to compete, I can see why people would quit as soon as they get their Expert plate.

A problem is you have a huge gap between expert and EXPERT. a person newly promoted to expert is racing against people who have been racing for years and are stupid fast. Let's pick on you, your fastest lap in ULWGP was 1:53, Jay ran a 1:46 that's huge you placed 9th. In D you ran a 1:47, Whitten ran a 1:44 again, huge. There's nothing you can do with traditional contingency to get someone to want to be an expert. You can be a fast novice in a year or two and collect, I don't recall any people who promoted to expert and were collecting contingency off the bat. Contingency, historically, is given to people who place well, and that's not easy to do when a new expert is going against people who have been racing at that level for years or decades. I know it's not easy when trying to determine how to pay out money but there's no real answer, Dirk Anderson and 212 Decals took good a stab at it by paying out randomly to the expert class they sponsored, so the only requirement was be an expert and race.