This year i've noticed from doing 12th nationals over the winter & doing the 1st round of the regional's, the competition this year has been very tight with literally only a couple of laps separating the A-final & the bottom end finals in the running order each round.
A lot of the more club racer element has it seems gone this year, so we are not getting the club racers who want to take their chances & we are not seeing the big gaps in driver ability between A-finals & the likes of G finals of or 8 laps or more seperating top & bottom.. drivers who were making A-finals over the last few years are taking places in C & D finals or lower simply because a mistake can make the difference between a good place or a low spot in the order, so it's not been uncommon this year to see regular A or B finalist drivers from a couple of years back, mixing it with the cannon fodder in the lower ranking finals. This may be a result of the financial state of the world today keeping the club racers away from the big competitions or just the high costs so the big events only attract the big names or those who are supported in some way to off-set some of the higher costs, or it may just be that with the new technology such as chassis design, brushless motors & LiPo batteries etc the cars are a lot more efficient, easier to drive & generally more competitive as they are more evenly matched now - i guess there are too many variables to give a proper answer as to why.
There are some newcomers taking part in the bigger championships, however these entrants are people who have been running in what i call the 2nd tier championships - open events such as the MAM, or Worksop Series etc that attract a high level of driver who perhaps doesn't do nationals & only known for picking up trophy winners or people that have perhaps switched from other classes of racing such as 8th rallycross or even touring cars & had a degree of success in those classes that you would perhaps not of seen doing nationals before.
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