History of Contest Scoring

Recent discussions about contest scoring have shown that it might be
beneficial to review the history of contest scoring in the U.S.
Here is a very brief overview.

The first U.S. National Soaring Championship was held at Elmira, New
York, seventy-three years ago. Three tasks were used: duration,
distance, and gain of altitude. The pilot performance measures for
these three tasks were, respectively, minutes, miles, and feet of
altitude. Because soaring contests are multiday contests, the daily
performance measures must be added together for a cumulative score.
However, minutes of duration, miles of distance, and feet of altitude
cannot be added together. No common unit exists for the addition. This
problem was addressed by awarding 1000 points to the daily winner
regardless of the type of task and awarding points to the other pilots
in a proportional manner. The daily points were then added together
for a cumulative score. This is the 1000-point system with which we
all are familiar.

Much has changed in the last seventy-three years since the first
contest. Duration, distance, and altitude tasks are no longer used.
Soaring has matured into a racing-only sport. The pilot performance
measure with the Time Distance Task is distance (see my posting on
r.a.s. 9/23/03). The performance measure is the same each day -
distance. The daily results now can be added together directly for a
cumulative score. It is no longer necessary to assign points

In 1999, I wrote a paper analyzing scoring systems. It was accepted by
OSTIV and presented at the XXVI OSTIV Congress in Bayreuth, Germany.
It was published in the OSTIV Journal, Technical Soaring, and in the
Soaring Association of Canada Journal, free flight. The paper proved
that 1000-point scoring systems produce scores that do not accurately
represent the actual, measured performances of the pilots. Simply, the
scores are not accurate. No one has challenged the conclusion of that
paper. The conclusion is not surprising considering that 1000-point
systems were designed to score duration, distance, and altitude tasks
and are now being used to score races. I will send a copy of the paper
to anyone who emails me for one.

Scoring on distance eliminates the three major sources of inaccuracies
in 1000-point scoring. The first inaccuracy is that pilots' scores
depend on the performances of their competitors rather than just on
their own performances. This is caused by dividing the pilots' speed
by the winner's speed to assign points. The number of pilots who land
out also affects the pilots' scores. These calculations are not done
in distance scoring.

The second inaccuracy is caused by assigning the same score value to
each day regardless of the length of the tasks. For example, 1000
points may be assigned to a two-hour flight on one day and to a
four-hour flight on the next day. However, two does not equal four.
Trying to "Make" two equal to four is mathematically incorrect and
causes scoring inaccuracies. This is not done in distance scoring. The
actual distances attained each day are scored exactly has they happen.

The third inaccuracy is caused by the assignment of an arbitrary value
for distance for the pilots who land out. This problem is eliminated
completely with distance scoring. The finishers and the land outs are
scored on the same dimension - distance.

In racing world wide, a course is set, and the champion is the
competitor with the lowest elapsed time. By calculation, the champion
also has the highest speed.

The same result is achieved with distance scoring. A fixed time for
the race is set rather than a fixed course. The champion is the pilot
with the greatest distance. By calculation, he also has the highest
speed.

This is a unique time in the history of soaring. The current
combination of GPS recorders and the Time Distance Task gives the
soaring community a fantastic opportunity to move from a seventy-three
year old system to an accurate, simple, understandable, and uniform
scoring system based on distance only. The soaring community owes a
debt of gratitude to the Canadians for their leadership in being the
first to seize this new opportunity and to provide the development
that a new system requires.

Bill Feldbaumer 09

I was wondering how long it would take for TET to rear
its head in this thread. Flew it for a whole season
- hated it. This seems only somewhat better in that
it seems easier to measure distance in a set time than
to convert distance into time - but is misses the basic
viceral appeal that racing is about speed over a course
- not whatever part you've completed by some indeterminate
time. Particularly given that the final glide normally
is at ~30 knots faster than average X-C speed, so it
would seem to give winners a non-linear point spread
over those who didn't get far into final glide.

If it were me, I'd monitor the radio for the fastest
finishers - then dive for the deck if I weren't close
to home -- no point in having any altitude in the bank
and not turn it into points, plus you'd want to end
your flight on a glide rather than a climb for speed
averaging reasons.

As for weighting, why wouldn't you measure distance
on a daily basis and weight the days by elapsed time
for each day? I agree that time is the main factor
that determines how many chances a pilot gets to make
good decisions or bad ones.

Worth noodling on as a concept - but at first blush
it seems to add more problems that it solves and might
require too many band-aids to make workable.

9B

At 07:18 07 October 2003, Jonathan Gere wrote:
(John Cochrane) wrote
The big issue is that the difference between 90 and
91 mph on a strong
day becomes much more important than the difference
between 30 and 31
mph on a weak day. It's 3 times as important if the
tasks are the same
length of time, since you cover 3 times as much distance
going from 90
to 91 mph than you do going from 30 to 31 mph. If
the fast day is a 4
hour task and the weak day is a 2 hour task, it becomes
6 times more
important to go the extra mph on a strong day.

3 times more important????
91t-90t=t
31t-30t=t
((V+1)*t)-(V*t)=(V+1-V)*t= t

6 times more important????
91*4-90*4=4 91*2-90*2=2
31*4-30*4=4 31*2-30*2=2

Under this type of scoring 1 extra mph is worth the
task time whether
it's a 10 or 200mph day. It's the 1000 point scoring
which gives the
point difference between 90 and 91 as one third the
difference between
30 and 31. And then throws in another effective 50%
devaluation of
the good day if it happened to be 4 hours of racing
instead of 2.
Anyway, you could look at it that way.

However, on a 4 hr task you waste only 2.64 minutes
to get from 91mph
down to 90, but you waste a full 7.74 minutes to get
from 31mph down
to 30. How in the world can TET purist Bill Feldbaumer
stomach both
differences being worth 4 miles? A minute is a minute,
right?

Jonathan Gere


Advocates might say this is good. (Though it could
also be achieved by
changing the mind-boggling devaluation formula we
currently use to one
based on distance achieved, if that's the only benefit.)

I (for once) don't have a strong opinion, but I'm
curious if the
supporters have thought this through, and why they
think putting so
much more emphasis on strong days is a good idea.

John Cochrane