Karl:

Thanks for the constructive critiscism. Just a few answers to your
points:

1) I totally agree that the purpose of our contest rules and contests
themselves should be geared toward the selection of the best pilots
from among the population of racing pilots. Period, end of discussion.
By being a little bit "warm and fuzzy" with my goals I was trying to
soften my proposals a little bit.

My real feeling is that our contests in general, but specifically
nationals, should never be a mere "easy chance to race" or a "racing
vacation." US national contests should be aimed at determining the
best of the best. If you are going to the US nationals in any class,
you should be going because you have a legitimate chance to place well
(or have aspiratioins of acheiving that goal in time) AND that you
have the fire to really compete against the best of the best so that
we, as a cummunity, may select a national champion in each class each
year.

By restricting the number of pilot slots available at any particular
nationals site (35/35) my thinking was to make the entry into and
caliber of any particular nationals more prestigious/elite. If I have
my facts correct, not just anyone can show up at a German nationals -
you have to qulaify to get in (i.e. have a top 35 pilot raninking in
class). I think it should be so here in the U.S. But we would have to
go at this goal relatively slowly so we did not shock the system. Or
not!

AND, hopefully, this would result in cosnsitently full contests
(65-70) for every nationals held, east or west, north or south. This
would be a boon to contest organizers I am sure and maybe spur new
organizations to get on board.

2) No, Montague and Mifflin are SUPERB Nationals sites and should
absolutely be bidding for nationals as long as the contest
organizations can be kept together and motivated to put them on. If
you are an elite racing pilot hoping to make the US Team or to develop
your racing skills to the level of US Team pilots, you should be
willing to drive to the very corners of the US, every year, to make
this goal of yours a reality. My only point was that the current super-
regionals like Perry, Parowan have their place in this envisaged
system (as maybe East/West Championships - not the level of US
Nationals, but somehow ranked above the regional contest level) and
can take up some of the demand for "racing vacations" and getting
together with soaring friends as the sole goal of attending a
nationals for some.

3) It is not so much the rules that need massive change. But the RC
should take a stronger line on some of its "suggestions" and make them
into rules and mandate their usage, even if only for 1 year. For
example, if the RC would place some restrictions on entry to nationals
(be it limiting number through double sited contests, or whatever),
the level of competition might rise. If the RC mandated that the
winners of regionals and the East & West contest winners gained
automatic entry to nationals, there would be something concrete to aim
for by those going up the ladder from newbie to racer, to beteter raer
to national champion hopeful. The RC tried to add Windicapping to
sports class a few years ago. No one did it becasue it was not a
mandate but rather a suggestion. Is it any wonder the concpet was neot
tried and the idea was abandoned. If you do not hold contest
organizers feet to the coals to neforce changes in ruels or provide
incentives to contest pilots to follow certain actions, then it will
never happen. I wouldlike to see the RC be a little more activist in
trying to reverse the trends we all see but seem powerless as
individuals to stop.

4) To make it to the top of ANY medal stand is a tremendous honor and
acheivement. I did not mean to lessen anyone's national championship.
However, the "meaningfullness" of a National Championship is directly
linked, in my mind, to the quality of the competition - the entire
competition.When you are in a contest and many, many pilots are
multiple thousands of points behind the leaders you have to wonder if
those pilots are there to race? Yes, bad luck happens under our
scoring ssytem - I've fallen prey to that myself lately.However, if
the entire US racing community can only muster maybe 10 pilots in each
class to be within 1,000 points (or so) of the leaders at the end of a
10 day nationals, then is the top being really pushed. Restricting the
number of pilots per class at my so-called "double nationals" might be
one way to make this happen. By having only the top 35 standard and
top 35 15-m drivers (for just one example) at a co-located nationals,
every pilot would have had to race his way in by their high pilot
ranking or winning a regionals or east/west contest. I can not see how
the level of comeptition woudl not go up.

5) I agree that our WGC Pilot selection is really as fair as we can
make it given the current limitations of time, distance, and money in
our giant country. It levels the playing field between east and west
coast pilots unwilling to make the drive across the country, Further
it avoids the political infighting associated with voting for pilots
or the various other ways other teams pick their pilots. But then
maybe we need to open up discussions at the RC-level and US Team-level
(ABD betweenthe two) to develop a system of racing at Nationals and
team selection so that we may bring home the gold at future worlds?

I am not the best thinker of the nuts and bolts of implementation,
that is what the folks on the RC seem to be best at. But I would love
to see some "out-of-the box" strategic thinking that will improve
racing year to year in all classes AND get our best team tot he WGC's.

My modified goals for a revised contest system:
- Full Contests (for organizers for competitors).
- Higher level of/Best possible competition at every Nationals.
- Better competiton at new East & West Championship Contests (winners
get automatic entry to "their" nationals).
- Continued relaxed nature of Regionals, limited to in region
competitors or maybe adjoining regions competitors, encouraging
newbies and local champions.

Thanks for your citicisms Karl and I hope this spurs some high-level
debate. We too hope to get to Parowan soon as well. But given limited
time and money combined with distance...

Tim McAllister EY

On Sep 26, 3:20*pm, "Karl Striedieck" wrote:
Tim,

Thanks for taking a lot of time to make constructive suggestions for
improvement in the US competition soaring scene. UH and other committee
members check this forum and I'm sure they will discuss your ideas at the
annual committee meeting in November in Houston.

Following are some observations/questions on your summary suggestions.



RC, please give the current structure of our Nationals, Super-
Regionals, Regionals a good look and see if we can't tweak or make
wholesale changes in the structure to acehieve what I think we all
want:

1) Good Fun, Comraderie and Racing

While we hope to experience "fun" and "comraderie" at contests this is
should be considered to be a desired accidental byproduct and not one of the
stated purposes in the rules. Soaring competition as controlled by SSA
sanctioned regional and national contests should continue to have as their
only objective the selection of the best pilots. If the Blackburns, Hudsons,
Spratts, Nixons and Kellermans add a dimension of hilarity to the pilots
meetings, great! Many find it worth the entry fee alone.

2) Rationale contest options (i.e. Montague is not a good option for
most east coast pilots, nor is MIfflin for Western pilots)

Are you saying Montague (and Ephrata), Mifflin (and Elmira) are unsuitable
for hosting national contests due to the driving distances?

3) Opportunity for Newbies and clear ladder to higher level
competition for newbies

What would you add to the rules to achieve this? There are presently a
number of provisions in the rules and procedures that address this area.
Reverse seeding at "sold out" sports class contests and mentoring of new
pilots are two that come to mind.

4) Truely meaningful races for National Championships

What is not "meaningful' about nationals now and how would you change it. *I
don't know anyone who has won a nationals that wasn't pretty proud of it.

5) The best National Team selections possible - hopefully leading to a
new US World Champion

If our objective is to send our best pilots to the world comps (WGC) the
present selection system seems about optimum except for the tinkering that
has been done to the select pilots for the Club WGC from our sports class..
For a couple reasons, all of which have nothing to do with selecting the
best pilot, we have reduced the odds of sending a winner. Pilots who have
been on a US team in an FAI class (Open, 18M, 15M, Sports) are excluded, as
are pilots who don't fly a glider meeting the handicap range of the WGC.
This means that the first six finishers at this year's sport nationals are
not eligible for the 2010 US Team.

I doubt that anyone who has flown against the winner, Rick Walters, would
rank him below the number seven finisher as the most likely to succeed at at
the 2010 Club WGC.

There may be compensating reasons for the modified selection process, but
let's not pretend they have anything to do with sending the pilot with the
best chance of bringing home the gold.

All the best Tim. Hope to see you at Parowan.

Karl Striedieck





Sincerely and respectfully submitted,
Tim McAllister EY- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -