In article ,
says...
To be equal to a non-powered glider in a non-powered glider event, the
entire flight, from tow to landing must be unpowered. Any other scenario
is not equal. For that reason, if the engine is run during any time
between the start of takeoff roll and the time the glider touches the ground,
it should be disqualified as a glider flight. Zero points.
Simple rule. Takes care of the inequalities. Everybody makes the same
land/no land/where to fly decisions.

In fact, everyone doesn't make the same decisions, even if they are
all flying unpowered gliders. A pilot with a good crew and a light
weight glider will be much more inclined to accept the possibility of
a field landing than a pilot with no crew and heavy glider will not.
For example, JJ flew his large and very heavy ASH 25 in our regional,
and his co-pilot was handicapped. Do you really think he made the same
decisions about where to land as he would've when flying his Genesis?

One of the things we try to achieve with our contest rules is
participation in soaring. So, will a rule like this increase or
decrease participation? Our experience at Ephrata is it will likely
decrease participation, as most motorglider pilots, faced these
choices:

1) landing out to maximize their contest points
2) landing at airport to ease the retrieve but giving up many points

will decide not to enter the contest at all, and the rule won't
attract enough unpowered glider pilots to make up the loss. This year
there were 5 self-launchers in the contest. One that normally enters
was instead in the Return to Kitty Hawk race, and another dropped out
at the last moment when he hurt his back. And there are more coming to
the area, so it's a substantial number of gliders for our regional
contest. Most of these are long time glider pilots doing a lot of good
for our region. One of them was the contest manager, for example.
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Eric Greenwell
Richland, WA (USA)