nick, you are thinking along my line of thought, just like any other sport (weather you call it a sport or a hobby is a different discussion) there are competitive levels. take basketball for example. everyone plays with the same general rules, but there ar many different levels of competition, based on your performance, you wouldnt see a pro player in the amateur ranks.
on a side subject,
i had an idea that i was thinking about with all of the points series that are going on. how about franchising teams, this is what is happening all over paintball. it works like this, you have a team of say 3 drivers, the team owner pays a fee to race the season, every event the points of the top 2 placed drivers in that team add the points to the team rank, this way if 1 person cant make an event you dont get penalized. then take the fee that the team owners put up in the beginng and split it up as a purse, and the team owner can either use the money to reimburse the drivers for some of their expenses, or this is a profit that the owner makes. just thought i may be a cool idea to throw around.