Does anyone use Club Class?

Yes! I "use" Club Class. I use it by flying a club class glider. I
have flown in a handful of Sports Class races and I flew in the
inagural Club Class at Cordele, Georgia, USA in 2009.

Should the "experiment" in Club Class in USA end? Yes! Time to move
forward with "Normal" club class events. Why experiment?

As Tim (Echo Yankee) has said, Club Class participants want to fly
among a smaller group of similar gliders. I don't want to fly against
the Duo Discii, the DG-1000, the Ventii, the ASW-27, the ASG-29, etc,
etc. There's really no way for me to keep up and try and fly and
learn something from the better pilot flying one of these. Is there a
chance for me to keep up and learn something from the better pilot
flying a Club Class ship? Yes. There is a chance. Slim, but at
least the chance is there.

Tasking for Sports can be a real joke with turn radii as large as 30
miles. 60 miles across. You can't see 60 miles here in the eastern
part of USA. But you could be on the "same" task, going to the "same"
turnpoint but be 60 miles apart. What good is that when pilots are
competing against each other? Are you flying in the same type of
airmass when separated that far apart? Not necessarily. Let's fly to
the same point, turn and keep going.

Last summer at Cordele, John Cochrane did explain that a CD can use
the MAT in a Sports Class to simulate an Assigned task. If the MAT is
called right, by golly, it would seem like an AST. And I would much
rather fly an AST or a properly called MAT than a turn area task with
20 or 30 mile radii on the turnpoints.

Am I a "hard core" racer? No. I just enjoy the chance to fly and fly
and fly. Yes, Sports Class is fun, but Club Class is more fun because
the competition is closer. I'm not flying Club Class to try and earn
a spot on the National Team to go fly in the Worlds. I'm just out to
have some fun.

Should Club Class negate the need for Sports Class? NO! But Sport
Class shouldn't negate the need for Club Class.

So why are some folks seemingly afraid of Club Class? Why not promote
it and allow it to grow? I'm going to keep needling at my friends
with their Standard Cirruses and LS3's and Libelles and ASW-24's and
see if I can coax them into coming to Cordele where, I hope, they will
host another Club Class.

(Ulterior motive to having lots of friends at the contest: So they
can take turns coming to get me on my landouts...)

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA