I thought the distinction between regional and nationals was going away.....
Assuming you aren't be sarcastic...The distinction did go away. But then again it didn't.
For licensing purposes, it did go away. You no longer have a regional license, you have a license. You can jump in any car included in any event (regional, divisional or major) and drive.
But the concept of runoffs eligible classes and runoffs qualifying events has not quite gone away yet. And it will be interesting to see if it goes away or just reforms itself over time like one of those liquid metal terminators.
One way for drivers to qualify for the runoffs is thru Major events. Major events cross divisions and are not controlled by the division. Only certain classes are invited to Majors. Divisions have the power to decide an alternate path to the runoffs.
In GLD there is simply a schedule of non-major races which are probably still labelled as "regional" races but are better thought of as divisional races which are used to determine the divisional championship. I don't know the details on how runoffs eligibility will be determined. Maybe it will just be top x in the divisional championships. Assuming all races count toward this. One astrick is that there is a quad weekend race scheduled but I'm betting only two of those races count. And it's possible other races may not count.
In NEDiv they seem to have split the "divisional" races into championship races which count to runoffs eligibility and races that don't. So depending on how you look at it, there are now three levels of races in NEDiv: regionals, divisionals and majors. is this progress? Well, we'll see. It will be interesting to see the effect on entries at each type of race (assuming drivers even notice the distinctions).
#becausehighmaintenanceracecar