Been a while since I had time to check the boards (job hunting sucks). I like the "Big Race" idea as it doesn't alienate anyone, and gives quite a bit of flexibility to the designer as you could easily make a checkers race game (LOL).

Another thought would be to give a canned set of graphics (say from Lost Garden or reiner´s tilesets) and say create a game from these graphics. You can't introduce any new graphics, but you can extend from the existing ones that are given.

Anyways, can't wait to see if/what the compo is this year.