A logbook endorsement sounds logical. Who in Australia are authorized
to do them?

I remember when I started racing a few years ago having to figure it
out for myself. Of course, I picked the brains of the pilots I was
racing with, but outside of that, the topic was not addressed (in a
how-to fashion) in any of the stack of racing-related reading
materials I assembled, which I found curious. It seemed to be a
sanctioned activity, after all.

I've always viewed fast, low finishes them as something of a penalty
(speaking in a racing context, of course). If you have the energy to
spend the last few miles of your last leg in a highly inefficient part
of the polar, it means you accumulated too much energy before starting
your final glide, and you lose more from that than you gain with a low
finish.

But they sure are fun to watch. I will never forget the sight of a 15M
glass slipper doing a worm burner finish at Seminole Lakes in November
2003 when I was a pre-solo student stick. He went by at mach 2, a
meter off the grass, from one length of the field to the other, and I
never heard a whisper, and he was maybe 100 meters away. I was amazed,
and I was hooked.

~ted/2NO