American Kitefliers Association

Hey I am new here but seeing this debate on Grand Nationals reminds me of problems we had with Paintball a few years back. The Big Championship was invite only and as such only the best of the best got to go and some people went down to watch but for the most part. The rest of us went to other events to play. Or if we were in it we played for very small crowds smaller then we had all year long and the sponsors hated that.

What was done to fix that was they set up events all over the country and built a point system much like the one used for each tournament. So anyone could enter into the Championship event but if you didn't have enough points going in you couldn't be the Champ. You may win that tournament but still the Best of the Best was going to take the Year Title.

I don't know if maybe that helps for you. I was at the Festival in Wildwood this year and loved it. Maybe you can kick off your season there and then fly some events in seaside, ocean city, and places like that. I am in NY and don't know if there is enough interest to make it worth running here but would live if you guys came to Jones Beach Field 6.

Well good luck The more i look for Kiting info the more i love the whole idea of it. Maybe I can get on one of these teams one day and see what happens.

MagicDrop wrote:

What was done to fix that was they set up events all over the country and built a point system much like the one used for each tournament. So anyone could enter into the Championship event but if you didn't have enough points going in you couldn't be the Champ. You may win that tournament but still the Best of the Best was going to take the Year Title.

That's an idea that has come up before 

Traditionally, we've had a couple of strong regional leagues in the US (North West Sport Kite League in Pacifc NW, Bay Area Sport Kite League in Northern Cal, Eastern League on East coast).  I can't speak for BASKL or NWSKL, but the Eastern League has always been based on a season-long accumulation of points at EL events.  Points at events are based on total number of competitors bested, with additional points for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.  At the end of the season, the person or team with the most points (adjusted so you can't easily win just by going to more events) is the champ in each discipline.  These leagues exist side-by-side with the AKA ranking system; all events in each of the regional leagues are also AKA events, so you earn league points as well as AKA points when you compete.

In contrast to the League model, for a long time now the AKA national championship titles have been based on earned invitations to Grand Nationals.  The country is divided into 6 conferences, and the best of each conference are invited to compete at Nationals.  I'd argue though that the relatively low number of competitors across all conferences, plus the low attendance at Nationals these days makes that system impractical at best.  In my opinion the system you described - basically the cumulative points of the season plus whatever additional points are earned at Nationals (no invitation required) is how we should choose the winners.  Naturally there'd have to be some thought as to how the scoring should work, but nothing that couldn't be hashed out.

Yeah i am always in favor of that type of scoring system. There is always something that makes it unfair because someone who can fly all over the country has a chance at better points going into Grand Nationals but lets be real by inviting only the best from each region may also leave out the second best person in Saw the NW who is much better then the
best in the NE. It is just an idea and i am not even a member of the AKA yet being as I flew a kite only once and had no idea this even existed.

I am hoping to find some people out here in the Long Island to meet up with soon but we will see my wife and I had a TON of fun crashing my 4-D Superlight.