To Jim and the rest organizing NA's,
I have a request that I would like to float...
The original proposal, as I understood it, was for NA's to precede the Dillon Open. This has been moved so that NA's will follow the Dillon Open. This creates an issue for those of us with a 2-day or more drive. For some of us, it may not be practical to race the full five days. The issue is that when we arrive, it will be in the middle of a pretty large regatta on a relatively small lake. This will make tune-up challenging for those boats that are not also racing the Dillon Open. I would think the goal would be to encourage boats that are even far away to race NA's and that they would not be heavily penalized because they cannot race the DO.
If it is feasible and depending on the number of boats in this situation, (I suspect it will be about 4-8), it would be nice to have the Dillon Open race committee give those boats a practice start and race following the last regatta start on Sunday afternoon. I for one would be willing to pay some small start fee for that privilege and I think it would go a long way toward a level playing field against those boats who have been racing for two straight days at the venue.
Please think about this and perhaps anyone else who has this issue and/or alternatives to this issue can chime in with their thoughts.
Jay and Elysia Harland
Madison #73