Seems to me that there is a great deal of coulds and mights in this topic.

I would have thought that, before getting people worked into a frenzy, the region responsible for the crisis already would have had an answer regarding whether not using the date would be a permanent loss.

And while I agree with the cats that all of the fun is in the box, it seems to me that perhaps the solution might lie outside the box.

If keeping the date is a requirement to keep the date in the future, perhaps someting involving the Hill Climb community or the placement of cones to make LRP suitable for a Solo. I.e. some combination of Solo-1, Solo-2, PDX, road racing (obviously not all of them over the same weekend, but some out-of-the box combo.)

Hell, have the TSD guys finish a rally at LRP and sell freaking tickets for a giant NER Barbie Cue.

And I would disagree that a Region cannot take a $50K hit. A Region the size of NER should have an emergency fund on which to call in the event of.... an emergency. What a Region cannot do is take a hit like that year after year.