Sean, the only problem with only 1 day of practice would be trying to figure out which tire is best for you. It is hard to use the gas nats in comparison to other nats. The tire wear at a gas nat and how the tracks tend to get broken down and unmaintained excludes many of the tires out of the equation. Due to the need for maximum traction, the chances of the track being brutal on tires, and the likely hood of the track getting rough, most gas races end up useing one of the following tires in only one of 3 compounds with not a single one being prodominately better:
Losi tires in Red = T-Bones, Step Pins, Reptiles, or Ifmar pins(rarely)
Proline in R3 or M3 = Snake Eyes, Bowties, or Holeshots(rarely)
Everyone knows one of these tires will be used and will perform extremely well.
Depending on a persons experience with certain tires, they know which ones they like over others. People will only bring tires they know they prefer on their vehicle from experience with them. This is already cutting down on the need to bring so many different tires to this event.
I do not think that tire compounds can be improved much more than what they are now. Currently at any track people goto for off-road or on-road, they can find a tire that will give maximum traction to the point of too much traction, with wear being the trade off. I mean, yes, they can make tires that last longer but the traction will drastically be reduced and this will make driving rougher when people battle for position.
I really think the problem with the electric off-road and the on-road scene with tires is the massive amounts of tires that are out there for people to choose from. Look at 1/8 scale, there are 3 tires that proline makes, 3 tires that panther makes, and 3 tires that GRP makes that work on 95% of the tracks that they run on. And each brands tire that are similar in design work extremely similar in performance. How many tires does Losi or Proline make for electric off-road(primarily designed for electric and not nitro)? I would say Losi has 5 different tires, with some performing similar to others(tapers and bk bars, ifmars and big shots), and Proline has 4 different designs with 3 having very similar performance characteristics(holeshots, evil twins, squares). With on-road, the tires change performance wise just from what time of the day it is, with 4 different dominate tire companies and each having a tire that works for different times of the day depednding on the temperature, it adds up.