On Tuesday, June 18, 2013 3:25:24 PM UTC-5, C-FFKQ (42) wrote:
Okay, I'll bite (probably regret it...) How can you get more points by flying faster in this situation? I'll declare up-front that I'm not a racer, so I might be misunderstanding the rules and scoring. Whether you slow down and hit the finish at exactly the right time (not over), or fly faster and arrive earlier, you're still scored for the same distance and the same time. Definitely, if you slow too much and cross after the minimum, you lose points, so I would think arriving early guarantees you the best score for the distance (but not "more" points, given a finish at minimum time). Basic equation of distance / (greater of actual time or minimum task time)

The US rules will score you at some ratio between your actual time on course and the minimum time on course if you are under minimum time, but not more than 15 minutes under minimum time. So, if the minimum task time is 3 hours, the pilot that comes back in, say, 2:54:20 will get a slightly higher speed for the same task distance as the pilot that comes back at 3:00:00. This was done to make it so that you didn't have a tie for everyone who was undertime but hit the same turnpoints. Of course, this was also in the days when if you went to the same turnpoints, you got the exact same distance.. i.e., pre GPS documentation of the flight.

It might pay if you are really early to hang out to be 00:14:59 under time, as opposed to being 00:15:01 under time. Another of those "edges" that a rule defines.

There is another thing that happens in the US rules if you are more than 15 minutes under time. It has to do with potentially reducing the number of points the winner for the day will get if enough of the pilots are more than 15 minutes under time.

Hope that hasn't made your head hurt too much!

Steve