Ryan,
Welcome to Hobie sailing in the "local" area. I live in Bossier City, LA, and just finished my first season with the Hobie 20. MBounds is right, Fleet 23 in Dallas is the way to go for you. Although it's a 3 1/2 hour drive to Dallas for me, I've attended three Fleet 23 regattas this year. They are a great bunch of folks, put on first class regattas, and will make a new guy feel right at home. You should join their fleet and get involved with their events. The best way to learn this sport is to get together with other sailors and PARTICIPATE. The Fleet 23 crowd, to include their regular visitors from Oklahoma, Arkansas, the Austin area, and even a couple of other sailors from Tyler, are very knowlegable and are extremely generous when it comes to helping a new guy. Their website is
http://www.hobiefleet23.com/.
The Hobie dealer in Dallas is Mariner Sails, owned by Aris Tsamis. He and his staff are very knowlegable and can help you find a solution to any problem that you might have. They have a wide selection of Hobie parts and accessories and if they don't have something you need, they'll get it for you. Their site is
http://www.mariner-sails.com/.
Now to address your most vexing problem: getting into racing with soft hulls. MBounds spelled it out pretty clearly. My H20 was 11 years old when I bought it. Although it had solid hulls, just about everything about it had been jury rigged. A lot of parts were missing. I've spent a small fortune bringing a derilict boat back from the brink and I didn't have to contend with soft hulls. To make the boat competitive, I'll need to buy a new set of sails. The skipper still has a lot to learn about tuning and racing the boat. You can drop a ton of money into an old boat, but with soft hulls I still don't think yours will be competitive. However, here's hope: there is a fiberglass repair shop on Lake Ray Hubbard run by Robert Cummings. He's very, very, good. He does Hobie warranty work for Mariner Sails and is a Hobie sailor himself. He fixed my boat after I T-boned a Y-Flyer (not my fault, but an another good story) and ripped open both bows. The number for Cummings Marine is (214) 341-1626. Let him take a look at your boat. If anyone can recover your boat, he's the one.
I'm not trying to discourage you, but as a guy that's racing an older boat, I thought that my perspective might be helpful. Click on my profile for my private email address, shoot me a line, and I'll reply with the names of a couple of Hobie sailors in the Tyler area.
Hope this helps.