The resorts people on the East Coast want races at, are having their own successful races now and I assume don't NEED a National to make money.
The biggest thing none of us know in this whole series is the combined needs of the individual venues that applied for a National this year. Contingent upon whatever time constraints each venue has, those may not mesh with the calender of the overall Nat. Series. Sugar is doing NORBA a favor by filling in a big TIME GAP by hosting a July event in '07. From what I got from Sugar, NORBA asked them to be in the series in '07. Sugar said they would give them an answer after they met to determine whether the '06 was financially WORTH having gone through. NORBA asked if Sugar could do a July timeslot instead of June to help fill in calender gaps other venues couldn't cover and Sugar decided to facilitate.
If Sugar had anything, like say their yearly lift inspection, scheduled in July, you could count on a big fat VOID in the National schedule.
For whatever reasons financially and fiscally, resorts aren't keen to getting a massive staff together for a small mid-summer single weekend event. They'd much rather either use their step down staff remaining from Winter operations to carry them through something like a National or a ramp up to the Nat in the fall and use the staff from it to prep for the Winter coming.
THAT is why you see that big void in the middle of the schedule. As to why there are no East Coast venues on the schedule, try writing the resorts here and asking them if they even applied for a Nat. in '07 and if yes or no what their reasons were.
I think you'll find not so many venues here applied as compared to out West.
To NORBA's credit...they've been chasing a resort in this region for years to get a Nat. back in the Southeast. It just hadn't come about until '06.
finally someone giving a short explanation about this whole deal...there is way more to it then, "hey we want to have a rece at this location" some resorts just aren't into the effort it takes for what they get.
i know that the guys running the Norba series would love to have all super killer location....why would they not?
sometimes a series sponsor will make a request for a location....sometimes a location that would be great for the event will actually cost the series and the mountain money to hold it.
sometimes they have stuff other events scheduled in the time slots that are open for the series.
i don't think all the locations are ideal by no means, but i also know that behind the scenes there is alot going on that people don't hear about or understand.