abufletcher

Mike, I think you did us all a service by posting the photo here. No need to feel awkward about it. The US public has gotten distinctly phobic about photographers over the last few years and if a guy can't take a photo of a model crash and post it for fellow modelers there's something wrong. Now if you had stuffed a camera in Greg's face to try to capture an expression of anguish that would have been another thing but all you did was take a snapshot in a very public place -- no harm in that.

Dai Phan, it's basically a matter of building up a strong national reputation through local and then national scale competetions. I'd assume it's something that takes years of competition. But I suppose it's also possible to ride a silver bullet to the top with a one-off win in the US Scale Nats or something like the Toledo Weak Signals show.