On Tuesday, 23 January 2018 14:45:13 UTC+2, wrote:
I do not race and never will so excuse my ignorance but is there not a penalty for circling the "wrong" way in a thermal? It would seem that it would be fairly easy to catch offenders via logs.

True, and there is penalty for "hazardous flying". I have yet to see it enforced in situations like this. One can always say that one did not see the other guy (like it is ok if you do not watch out of the cockpit). Only soft measures (more lenghty safety lectures) are used, which are huge waist of everyone's time. You would have to make a loop in front of competition director's eyes at treetop level to get "hazardous flying" penalty. Unless of course you fly in a country where it is normal, and you are actually expected to make stunts low over airfield.