On the one hand, it's great that there still seems to be weekly online tournaments and a lot of people still playing this game.
On the other hand, it just seems like qualifying for one of these tournaments is next to impossible for all but the elite players. (I can't imagine what it must have been like to try and qualify during this game's heyday.)
Saturday night, I had qualified for the latest tournament, "American Muscle." By last night, I had dropped to 135th place and more than 8 seconds off the qualifying pace. I significantly improved my time last night, climbing back up to 80th place and about 1.3 seconds off the qualifying pace, but even as I was trying to requalify last night, the qualification bar dropped more than a full second while I was actually out there. I suspect if I were to log in now, I'd see that I'm probably pushed back down into the 100's. I just don't think I'll ever have what it takes to qualify against the elite, even with fewer people playing the game now.