US Rules change needed for devaluation of contest day

On Friday, 22 August 2014 09:03:49 UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
In sailing, most major events (and most small events for that matter) have as standard practice a "drop" race or "throw out" after a certain number of races are completed (usually 6). This is very standard in sailing. If you get in only 3 races (for example) in for the weekend, all races count because throwing one third of the available sores would greatly skew the results. But once you get a solid number of races, six, everyone throws the worst and only your best 5 count.



I love the idea of "throw-outs" (otherwise referred to as mulligans in sailing) in soaring but think the adjustment should only kick in after 3 solid contest days are completed (.25 * WDSD). Beginning to "tune scores" after only one or two flying days seems a bit early.



Sean

The rule reads as follows

11.4.4 â€* Worst Day Score Adjustment
If this is declared to be in effect, an adjustment is calculated and added to the cumulative score of each entrant.
11.4.4.1 â€* Worst Day Score Differential
For each entrant, WDSD is the greatest difference on any contest day between the entrant's score (before application of a Contest penalty) and the highest score achieved by any regular entrant in the class on that day.
11.4.4.2 â€* A Worst Day Score Adjustment is added to each entrant's cumulative score, as follows:
After one official day: WDSA = zero
After 2 official days: WDSA = 0.25 * WDSD
After 3 official days: WDSA = 0.5 * WDSD
After 4 official days: WDSA = 0.75 * WDSD
After 5 or more official days: WDSA = WDSD

With little to no use of this rule there is no experience or history to try to make assessments of the validity. Maybe after 3 days is better than 2.

Would like to see it actually used before having lengthy discussions.