Club Class vs. Sports Class

Just to throw my 2 cents into this debate...

I come at this as a former US Club Class Team member who owns a club
class glider and loves the club class concept BUT one that has put
himself on the "Black List" of pilots banned from competing in Club
Class due to flying another WGC in a non-club, world, junior class. I
would definitely fly a Club Class event here in the US rather than a
Sports Class event at any level - it is fairer! Even more so at a Club
Class Nationals if I could get back on the team ;-(

Getting a US Club Class Nationals (integrated with US Sports Nats
which I support as a 1st step to possible independence of the class)
will allow people who fly club class ships the opportunity for fairer
racing amongst a smaller range of handicapped ships AND allow for
flying Assigned Tasks (AT's) like the rest of the classes here in the
US get to fly. Flying AT's is fun and really lets you measure your
skills on a fixed course on any particular day against the best pilots
who fly. I know that there are those who would ban all AT-type tasks
in the interest of safety, but they are fun AND the Club Class around
the world lets older gliders fly AT's whereas our Sports Class makes
this fairly impossible or extremely unfair to the "lower" performance
ships.

Getting to the Team topoic, one thing I beleive our club class team
members are missing from their experience when they go to Club Class
Worlds is that, coming out of the US Sports Class, many of them HAVE
NEVER FLOWN an Assigned Task in a club class ship in their qualifiying
for the team. And if they are a Sports Class only competitior having
flown contests only in Sports Class, they will NEVER have flown an AT
until they get sent on a 500km AT in the mountains of France with
thunderstorms likely (as was done in France 2006).

Getting competitive pilots on the US Club Class Team requires having
practice and experience at Club Class racing prior to getting
overseas. The only way this works is to enable Club Class pilots to be
better developed here at home. How we do this is to provide for Club
Class contests here at home. Whether or not they are integrated with
other classes at the national level or as a stand alone nationals is
irrelevant. The need for the class both to better develop our team
members AND to provide for better and fairer racing for all who wish
to should be the end goal here.

One additional thing that never gets said in this debate is that the
Ruels Committeee has no way of knowing what non-competition pilots
would be spurred into club class flying if the Club Class was added
tot he list of competing classes. If they send the SRA poll to
existent contest pilots only and you ask to add another class... well
then off course you are going to perceiving a further fracturing of
the currently existing base of contest pilots.

The question that needs to be asked and has never been fairly
addressed by the SRA poll is the following: If you are a glider pilot
having access to or flying a club class-type glider and do not
currently compete: Would the addition of Club Class events at the
regional and national level encourage you to get racing?

Get me a meaningful answer to that question and we may see that adding
Club Class may, in fact, expand the base of contest pilots and then
everyone wins. We just dont know and fears of "further dividing up"
the existing contest pilot population are unfounded until we get that
answer.

Tim McAllister EY