The idea is to promote riding FOR RIDERS OF VARYING SKILL not just the top few guys so they can have a bigger prize pool. If setting up grids is painful, review the process and improve it.
The grid won't get smaller it will increase, but the payout for dash may decrease. What's more important Better grid sizes or more $$$ for the top few guys?
108 has the potential to push people and get them to improve while learning faster lap times. Which should get MORE RIDERS into Dash, sooner. The fastest Dash rider would never lap a 108 rider, so there's also no concern there.
To address the concern of 5-9 riders remaining, There was on avg 20 riders gridded per dash race from round 4 to 6. If 108 was added over half would remain in Dash as they are 23 or lower. In rd 5, 15 of the 20 RIDERS qualified for Dash.
Being a rider that hopes to be competitive in Dash for Cash next year, the biggest draw for me is the cash. Not that it's a lot of cash $105 for first which I've never won, and $30 for 5th, which is usual what I get. If you take most of this out each round (and it will for sure eliminate nearly all championship pay out funds, which will in turn discourage the top 4-8 riders from entering dash for cash) it just becomes another Open Sportbike race. We don't need two of those. Tires and fuel are most expensive for me so I don't have any interest in doing the same race twice. I'd pick Open Sportbike over the Dash for no Cash. I like it's spot in the daily schedule better, and it is gridded by points. If Formula 108 is just what you say and supposed to be a stepping stone to get 'MORE RIDERS' into Dash for Cash then why not keep all the race fees from both races in the Dash for cash pay out? That's win win the way I see it, the top 1-8 riders remain attracted to Dash for Cash and the bottom riders still have the same attraction, progression and they get a championship.
All that being said, as Blam and Jeff mentioned setting up this class IS a nightmare. This is coming from guys that have been there done that, the process has been reviewed and improved as much as possible. They have spent hours every Saturday night building the grids for Sunday. Other than the executive in charge of Air fence set ups, registration/grids has the highest rate of attrition on the executive. These guys die from a thousand paper cuts for the club and this proposed new class is giving them one hundred more, no matter how you spin the rules.
Please understand I'm trying to see things from all angles here. I'm not opposed to a Formula 108 class I'm just sharing how things look from where I am, as a competitive racer and as a current exec.