What is Purpose of Sports Class Nationals?

Papa3 wrote:
Lot's of good stuff in there. To summarize the proposal, "Include a
separate Club Class Championship within the Sports Class Nationals with
the World Team selection based on the highest placing Club Class ship."
Sounds okay to me...

Hmmn, I didn't get exactly that out of Tim's post, but I like it!
IIRC, the ill-fated HH SC Nats (again my humble apologies to Tim!) was
also the venue for that year's World Class Nats, with separate scoring
and separate tasks (at least I think the tasking was separate). I
would much prefer a separate scoring system at least, so SC pilots
don't have to look on page 2 (or 3) to see how they are doing ;-).


A couple of comments/questions:

1. Club Class Parameters: Why not just keep it simple and set a
handicap range using the annual CH Handicaps that most closely
resembles the World Club Class list. Something like .95 to 1.1 would
be pretty close (though I'm partial to .925 as the lower limit:-) That
can be adjusted every 2 years if/when the IGC changes their list.

In America, the 2005 handicaps (the latest list I could find) we

Std Cirrus 1.000
LS3 0.953
LS4 0.950
ASW28 0.925
LS8/15 0.925

So, given the current handicap system, allowing 0.925 handicaps would
have the effect of negating the entire idea.

2. Equipment vs. Participation: Despite the fact that I agree with
your proposal, I question the base assumption that a lot of potential
competitors (by that I mean people capable of winning a Club Class
Nationals against top talent) are scared off because people show up
with their V2s and ASW-27s. Maybe I'm in the minority, since I had
no problems showing up for a Standard Class nationals and 15-Meter
nationals with my LS-4 when Discii and ASW-27s ruled the roost. If I
look around Region II (ie. my region) I'm hard-pressed to count more
than a couple of guys who could win a competitive Club Class Nationals.
I've spoken to a couple, and they have explicitly said that it's the
cost of 2 plus weeks at a contest that keeps them away, not the fact
that their ship is mildly uncompetitive. Point being, I doubt that
there's this broad underground of potential Club Class Champions
lurking in the shadows. Plus, there are a LOT of Sports Class
regionals around, and I don't see these being over-subscribed with Club
Class entries either.

Certainly there is no incentive to drive forever and spend $2K or so to
compete in a contest where there is no chance of winning. Who knows
how that would change if there actually was a chance. We won't know
until we try. In any case, the SSA supported a 2006 World Class
Nationals with only 9 gliders present, and I suspect I could get 9 SC
pilots to commit to a meet where they are assured there will be only
?SC gliders in a 0.95 to 1.1 or so range.