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