Selfish, noisy, good-will thieves
My experience with them was while I was at Leicester and I admit I didn't actually speak to any of them. But the whole thing came across as a self-absorbed traveling flying circus that really did little more than pitch up at an airfield and spend a day or two howling around the countryside for miles, low and at full power, essentially sh*tting in someone else's back yard for their own amusement. If an airfield has problems with the neighbors, they're best to tell this lot to move on.
Other than buying fuel and food, I was at a loss to see how the host airfield benefited at all, since the event doesn't exactly attract a huge number of spectators and it plays hell with the normal operations on a busy weekend.
And, on that point, the times I've seen them, the handicapping must not have been very accurate because they gaggled across the finish line in a same day/same way kind of fashion, hardly in sight of one another, not even providing an interesting finish to the event.
Stick, in my estimation, you didn't miss anything.
Oh, I nearly forgot. This part is absolutely unforgivable. At Leicester it made me cry to see that this lot in C152s, Barons, and other not-very-interesting-GA types, were actually competing for the Schneider Trophy in what I can only call the most egregious display of arrogance I have ever witnessed in aviation. Yes, THE Schneider Trophy. The original piece of magnificent aviation majesty was there on the table in the clubhouse for all to see. Such was the ignominious misuse of this once-great race and trophy that I just couldn't see how they could justify continuing to hand it around to each other each year and think it was anything less than an insult to the true racers of the day. I would much rather see it retired to a museum somewhere with the plaque of the last "real" winner displayed and restore it to the level of glory and legend to which it rightfully belongs. The whole travesty was pitiful and heinous in a way that words fail me to properly describe.