competitions?

how often are these held?? any information or links on them??
categories? specials for us newbies?

hrmodeler.com/BMOM

thats the best model of the month contest, information is on the site. as for here at automotive forums. we have contests just about all teh time. but we usually only have one going at a time. right now everyone is focused on the model of the year contest

Check the motorsport sub section of this forum, we have a Le Mans 24 hour contest on at the moment which you could enter...

There are 3 i can think of:

BMOM (http://www.hrmodeler.com/bmom/index2a.html)
The Le Mans contest has been running for some time in the motorsport forum
The AF Model of the Year contest (the first thread on this forum)

Depends if you mean the online variety (which are as much about photography as model building) or in the flesh model comps. The former have already been covered, for the latter get in touch with your local hobby club or IPMS branch.

if you have a local hobby store, ask the guy there