OK, yes. The "Hill Country". Beautiful place. For the purposes of this conversation, does it matter whether it's technically a mountain or a hill if landing out there means you crash and probably die?

The risk was the high chance of injury or death if the lift did not pan out . The pure gliders had no "Plan B" if they went into the hills and did not find lift. The motorgliders had a "Plan B". Yes, Plan B had risk, but less risk of landing out than the pure gliders. Isn't that a big part of the attraction of motorgliders?

This was at the Sports Nats at Uvalde a few years ago. Maybe not every motorglider went up in the hills that day, but I seem to remember that most did.. There may have been a pure glider or two that chanced the hills.

The point is: Tasking and terrain can significantly favor motorgliders. Not sure there's a situation where tasking and terrain ever favors the pure glider. Only on weak lift days do pure gliders have any potential advantage. Again, it doesn't matter very much to me from a competition standpoint. I just wish the motorglider guys would quit saying they have no competitive advantages.