I kind of see their point, as right now to be in world first race you pretty much needed a dedicated team of crafters and gatherers to get you crafted gear (necessary because Iconoclasm is i480, if I remembre correctly), and smaller groups without these means can't really hope to compete, whereas if they had had a week to craft their own gear or buy it, it'd be different, I suppose.

I'm not sure how many more people would effectively be able to take part in this race were this to take place, but I can't imagine it'd be a drastic increase, so I agree with you there