Yup - it's a difficult question. Charlie Spratt used to rattle off many rules by the name of the pilot for (against?) whom a given rule was written. I won't repeat them, but some of the stories behind rules are quite entertaining. Related to this situation, IIRC, there was a problem at one point where pilots would give up at the start and land. They'd then find out that a bunch of guys had gotten away and had pretty good flights while a bunch had landed out. An official day was in the balance. So, some pilots would intentionally go up again, take a start, and land at the next closest airport 5 miles away to "kill" the day by increasing the number of competitors to decrease the ratio of pilots making minimum distance. So, the rule got changed to be "at least half the standard minimum distance" to make it a little more of a commitment to go out and make a marking distance. That was the story I heard - I don't know if it was a widespread issue, a single instance, or a hypothetical situation.

In the case of the Moriarty Day 1 contest, it appears from the log files and task parameters that the Standard Class task was the last to open, and the lone "contestant" started pretty much when the gate opened. It's interesting that 3 or 4 of the remaining pilots obviously had the altitude at some point after the gate opened to start (i.e. 6,000 or more AGL), but they chose not to. It would be nice to hear what led to that situation. Was the picture out the windscreen so ugly that they landed for safety reasons? Did they think that the conditions would get better and ended up losing that bet? If the former, I think it's up to the CD to stand up for the safe/fair rule. If the latter, then I think "that's racing."

Just my opinion.

P3