My thoughts on a completely different concept to increase participation.
Regionals are eliminated, replaced by 2 or three Qualifiers, east, central and west. Qualifiers will have 4 divisions, 6, 7, 8 and 9. (based on the current ranking list levels) I believe 6-8 should be handicap but could be actual. Skiers would need to have a minimum of 4 or even 5 tournament scores in the qualifying year to be eligible.
Format: Qualifiers would be run by headquarters and the host club. They would be in late July to early August. It would be a special C tournament with tighter judging on gates and driver selection than a plain C (Hortons C+?) A skier can enter any of the Qualifiers and more than one if spots are open. Skiers would pick the day they ski when they enter. Families can get their rides in one or two days and be done if desired. My ski buddies and I could all enter for the same day and car pool to the tournament, ski and go home if we wanted, hopefully after we helped with judging scoring etc. Each day, each division will ski together. All 6's ski at 7:30, 7's at 9;00 etc. BGM&W and all ages ski together if they are in that division. Scores are posted as the skiers ski and winners are determined at the end of the tournament. Competition would run from early in the morning to early afternoon to take advantage of better conditions and hopefully similar for everyone and allow for the next days competitors to get a practice ride before they ski. The top 5 skiers in all the various groups would be invited to the National Championship Finals.
National Championship Finals
This event would be in a warm location towards the end of Sept or early Oct. Run it as a two round event under the same handicap or actual score basis as the qualifiers. Entries should be free from a fee paid as a part of the entry fee for the Qualifier. Alternates are eligible to move up if a top 5 skier does not participate. In order to drive revenue, a crew should be hired to professionally video the final rounds. They should professionally edit it after the tourney and commercials sold to sponsors would be added just like a television production. This could be sold as a DVD or pay per view online product or, if enough advertising is sold, made available for free.
This should bring a lot more entries and hopefully revenue. To be clear, you are still skiing against only the skiers in your age group and level. All M5, level 7 skiers are skiing against each other but you would be skiing with all level 7 skiers on that day and you are competing against all M5 level 7 skiers skiing in that qualifier. Requiring participants to have a minimum of 4 or 5 tournaments to establish their average and level would help increase participation in local tournaments.