It's just my opinion, but afaic the racing scene has been adversely affected over the years by all this pressure to buy the highest high end stuff, what the racers run, etc. Car racing has gotten WAY too expensive, and therefore exclusive. It may be too late for nitro, but if the days of "you have to have a $400+ engine" are coming to an end, then that's simply great. I don't know if NR saw some kind of writing on the wall(I.e. that that approach was not sustainable..)but if the change in philosophy to focus less on pros and more on ordinary racers is indeed their policy, well that's the coolest thing ever IMO.

Not sure what the boat side of things is like. But I think a change of the sort we've seen with NR in the car world has been an extremely welcome development. I even think it would be cool to see it taken further and for example have local series' just using Elite 5's or something… I know that's not realistic and won't happen, but I think racing needs more of that kind of simplifying (and democratizing..) approach.. Just my very random 2c..