Tony Verhulst wrote:
Listing the top ten scores and then listing the top club class finisher
in the field is not the best way to represent data, IMHO. A person more
skeptical as myself might say that you are pushing an "agenda". I've
looked at the data and come up with a different picture. The reason that
so few club class ships score well in sports class contests is that
there are so few club class ships entered.

Zounds! I'm mortally wounded by your accusation that I, an owner of a
LS4 and avid Sports Class competitor, have allowed bias to creep into
my otherwise completely objective analysis ;-). Well, actually, I had
no real idea how to look at the data - I just thought that if I
actually looked, something might leap out at me. Something did, but
it wasn't what I expected. What got my attention is the two times SC
pilots did well, and what it took for that to happen.

You and the others are of course right that the skill of the pilot has
a lot to do with who is, or is not, in the top of the scoresheet. In
theory, if the handicaps are done correctly, equally skilled pilots
would score equally, regardless of what ship each was flying. All I
was trying to do with the data is to point out that that doesn't appear
to be the case. A very highly skilled pilot (Manfred Franke) in a
very well-prepared LS3 consistently scored lower than very highly
skilled pilots in ASW27s (or Ventus2s or D2s, etc). To borrow P3's
analogy for a moment, I believe the data shows that the guy with the
wooden racket consistently lost, even though a handicap system was
devised to equalize the performance difference between the wooden and
graphite rackets. Either he wasn't that good to begin with, or there
is something wrong with the handicaps.

I think you either have to agree that either the handicaps are somewhat
biased in favor of the ASW27 crowd, or that Manfred really isn't in the
top rank of pilots. Maybe there are so many better ASW27 pilots that
there will always be several at each SC Nats. This may in fact be the
case, but how to tell for sure?. One way would be to have the ASW27
pilots fly LS3s, and that (I think) is what the Club Class does in
Europe.

In closing, I offer a very tongue-in-cheek suggestion for a definitive
experiment: P3 and HF arrange to swap gliders for the entire 2007
season, and fly SC in several of the same regionals and the 2007 SC
Nats at CCSC. If HF wins, P3 has to publicly state that the current
handicap system is unfairly biased toward top-line glass. If P3 wins,
I'll publicly accept the current handicap system as fair and equitable,
and rabble-rouse no more (at least on this subject). Start the
towplanes, and may the best pilot win! ;-).

Frank(X3)