New Class for US Nationals

Again I want to emphasize my personal Thank You to the rules committee for officially sanctioning the Club Class concept here in the U.S.A. This is a complicated issue and I am certain that much thought and discussion has been spent addressing this issue.

I, for one, do not have a problem making limited additions and subtractions from a club class list of gliders. OR, conceptually, to/from a range of handicaps. Lest it escape anyone's notice, it was our conception of "Club" Class/"Modern" Class split of US Sports Class that was named as such and proven out in Moriarty, NM back in 2010. Yes, we cut off particpation of the upper end of the handicap range. But we did so to make for better racing.

My, and I think other's, big problem is with the opening of the RANGE of handicaps allowed. It is too broad to really offer the benefits of Club Class as seen around the world.

What has proven so popular around the world, and there is absolutely no evidence to say it will not work as well here in the US, is the idea of "limited handicap racing". This is, in fact, what you're trying to do with Std Class by limiting the benefits of handicapping to .95.

Defining the US Club class as something roughly around the Range of the IGC concept WILL bring older, less costly ships into the competition scene - many of them in the hands of good, dedicated pilots.

The currently proposed conception of Club Class has not been tailored to aim at getting these ships into the competition scene. Sure is it easy to parrot the "run what ya'brung" line to promote the "racing fairness" of US Sports Class as a vibrant competition class, but it is not enough to entice many into the game. A fairer, more tailored racing experience for a limited range of older ships can do that.

It is the the Limited Handicap Range that makes Club Class work so well. By opening up the range you dilute the benefits you are hopefully trying to capture - good, fairer handicapped racing.

Thank you again for your work on this contentious issue.

Tim McAllister EY

Master Tim has the point.

Following all the rules of the IGC the South African club class recently
was extended to include the Ventus 1 and similar performance ships. FAI
approved list and handicaps and all. The motivation being that the
Standard Class was dying with too few entries to make a race, and a
significant portion of the fleet not competitive in any class.

So - the news is that we now have no standard class racing at all.
(there are only a couple of ASW27s and 24s) Everyone is either in 18m
(Lots of JS1 and Ventus 2, one ASG29 and a couple of LAK17b)
Club class is now an ASW20, Ventus 1, ASW28 class. All the older ships -
including my Std Cirrus are out of contention. The tasks that suit the
higher performance ships make it pointless being there in a 1970s
Standard class ship.

Handicapped racing needs all the competitors to be of reasonably similar
performance - otherwise the "race" becomes so spread out and fractious
that the fun and fairness goes missing.

Set tasks that the Libelle and Cirrus and Pheobus are suited to - and
the Ventus/ASW20 drivers complain it is too short and does not afford
them a chance to race. Set it to suit them and you get situations where
the next thermal is out of range of the first generation, and they
complain that despite the handicap they are excluded from the results by
physics.

So - in our case we still have a limited range of handicaps competing,
but entries are now clustered around the new hot ships.

The first generation ships have retired from racing. But there is
slightly more participation. Does not help when it comes to flying in
Club Class worlds.


On 2012/11/15 5:33 AM, wrote:
Again I want to emphasize my personal Thank You to the rules committee for officially sanctioning the Club Class concept here in the U.S.A. This is a complicated issue and I am certain that much thought and discussion has been spent addressing this issue.

I, for one, do not have a problem making limited additions and subtractions from a club class list of gliders. OR, conceptually, to/from a range of handicaps. Lest it escape anyone's notice, it was our conception of "Club" Class/"Modern" Class split of US Sports Class that was named as such and proven out in Moriarty, NM back in 2010. Yes, we cut off particpation of the upper end of the handicap range. But we did so to make for better racing.

My, and I think other's, big problem is with the opening of the RANGE of handicaps allowed. It is too broad to really offer the benefits of Club Class as seen around the world.

What has proven so popular around the world, and there is absolutely no evidence to say it will not work as well here in the US, is the idea of "limited handicap racing". This is, in fact, what you're trying to do with Std Class by limiting the benefits of handicapping to .95.

Defining the US Club class as something roughly around the Range of the IGC concept WILL bring older, less costly ships into the competition scene - many of them in the hands of good, dedicated pilots.

The currently proposed conception of Club Class has not been tailored to aim at getting these ships into the competition scene. Sure is it easy to parrot the "run what ya'brung" line to promote the "racing fairness" of US Sports Class as a vibrant competition class, but it is not enough to entice many into the game. A fairer, more tailored racing experience for a limited range of older ships can do that.

It is the the Limited Handicap Range that makes Club Class work so well. By opening up the range you dilute the benefits you are hopefully trying to capture - good, fairer handicapped racing.

Thank you again for your work on this contentious issue.

Tim McAllister EY


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771

In the last 4 Club Class World/European Champs there has never been a glider in the top 5 that had a base handicap above 1.01 (1.01 is e.g. a Jantar Std. 3/LS 1F/ASW 19 - 1.02 with WL)

The best placing of a glider with a handicap near the top of the permited range (1.07+) has been 6th & 10th (ASW 24 in 2010/2008 - same pilot, he's now flying a DG 100). Best placing for an ASW 20 (1.08/1.09 with WL) has been 19th (2011), for a Discus (1.07/1.08 with WL) 18th (2008).

The sites have been your typical run of the mill European flat land/mixed terrain sites with Rieti as a true mountain site in 2008. It should be safe to assume that they had anything from strong to weak thermal conditions with typical mountain flying in Rieti. National results for Club Class e.g. in Germany will show similar results.

So statistically speaking you do not want to be at the high performance end of the Club class, the ideal performance range seems to be bottom to middle, let's say 0.98 to 1.02 with WL.

I can't see how that would change with a Ventus or LS-6 (or the remaining ASW 20s). How much more performance will a Ventus or LS-6 give you over a first generation ASW-20 to make it a game changer in your normal and statistically relevant range of conditions taking the increased handicap into account?

The question might be how much people initially migrate to higher performance ships when they become allowed because they perceive an advantage even though that might only be the case in extreme conditions that are statistically irrelevant and get absorbed by the handicap disadvantage during your "normal" days.

Here the numbers:

Europeans Club Class 2011
Nitra, Slovak Republic

1 - Std. Cirrus 1.00
2 - LS 1F 1.01
3 - Jantar Std. 3 1.01
4 - Libelle 0.98
5 - ASW 15 0.98
6 - Std. Cirrus 1.00
7 - 18 see above 0.98 - 1.01
19 - ASW 20 1.08
20 - Discus B 1.07

Worlds Club Class 2010
Prievidza, Slovakia

1 - Libelle 0.98
2 - Libelle 0.98
3 - ASW 15 0.98
4 - Hornet WL 1.01
5 - Jantar Std. 3M (Brawo) 1.01
6 - ASW 24 1.07
7 - 20 Libelle/Cirrus/Jantar/LS 1F 0.98 - 1.01
except
14 - LS 4 1.04
18 - ASW 19B WL 1.02

Europeans Club Class 2009
Pociunai, Lithuania

1 - LS 1F 1.01
2 - ASW 19 WL 1.02
3 - LS 1F 1.01
4 - Jantar Std. 3M (Brawo) 1.01
5 - Jantar Std. 1.00
6 - ASW 19 1.01
7 - LS 4a 1.04
8 - Jantar Std. 3 1.01
9 - LS 4 1.04
10 - LS 7 WL 1.07
11 - 20 Cirrus/Jantar/ASW 19/LS 1D/F 0.98 - 1.01
21 - Discus B WL 1.08

Worlds Club Class 2008
Rieti, Italy
1 - Hornet 1.00
2 - Std. Cirrus 1.00
3 - Std. Cirrus 1.00
4 - Std. Cirrus 1.00
5 - LS 1F 1.01
6 - Jantar Std. 3M (Brawo) 1.01
7 - 9 LS 1F/Cirrus/Jantar 0.98 - 1.01
10 - ASW 24 1.07
11 - 18 DG 100/Cirrus/ASW 19/LS 1F 0.98 - 1.01
18 - Discus 1.07
20 - ASW 19 1.01

Markus

It is the the Limited Handicap Range that makes Club Class work so well. By opening up the range you dilute the benefits you are hopefully trying to capture - good, fairer handicapped racing.

This is exactly why we split sports class, with typically 30-40
entries in two. It gives smaller handicap racing, and allows for a
better race. You're welcome.

As soon as we get 60 entries, with a viable low-performace group, we
can split it up into three.

I mean, really, why not have even purer racing with a handicap range
of 0.939-0.941? Answer, because there are not enough entries.
Handicapped racing is always about realistically carving up the
available entries into groups, large enough to make a good race, small
enough to make a fair and enjoyable race not too dependent on luck of
weather, tasking, and handicap.

You're forgetting that "good, fairer racing" also depends on numbers.
8 guys in a narrow class is not as good a race as 25 in a very
slightly broader class. One of the big lessons of our team self-
examination process is that Europeans fly contests with 50 gliders and
10 world level pilots in them. 8 with 1 is not a substitute 12 gliders
is a rock bottom. Really, a successful world-level-preparation race
needs 30 gliders to be considered successful. Yes, that makes it a lot
harder to win. That's the point.

No other class says "you may not fly your glider in this race. Go
home" You are allowed to fly a ventus1 asw20, or discus LS4, or even a
1-26 if you're so inclined in 15 meter class. That's why both halves
of sports have open bottom ends.

The currently proposed conception of Club Class has not been tailored to aim at getting these ships into the competition scene.

This is absolutely false. The RC's number one concern, and the number
one guiding principle in all our club class discussion has been how to
increase participation. You may rightly accuse us of not paying enough
attention to preparing the team for WGC, because we're too interested
in participation. But not that we're insufficiently focused on
participation!

We're talking about nationals. Next year. To go to nationals, you have
to participate in regionals and get on the ranking list. To get good
enough for nationals you have to participate in regionals. We looked
hard at the numbers. Go look at my Soaring article. The numbers are
just not there yet.

That's why we've been having club class regionals and super regionals
for several years now. And we can have as many as anyone wants to
schedule and show up for, with nothing but cheering from RC. To have a
successful class at the national level, you have to have a successful
class at the regional level. If people won't show up for any contest
that does not give US team points, frankly, they're never going to get
good enough to belong on that team.

You're making the usual "build it and they will come" argument, that
somehow declaring a much narrower nationals class will magically make
gliders appear that do not appear at super regionals, do not come to
sports nationals, and aren't even on the seeding list so they can't
appear. We're not talking about 3 or 4, to make this viable you have
to double the numbers that show up at sports nationals in "club"
gliders.

There is a bit of burned once, twice shy here. Club advocates said,
"restrict team selection to club gliders, then lots will show up, and
all the FAI guys will borrow a club glider to go to nationals." It
didn't work. Club advocates said, "restrict team selection to people
who haven't been to WGC before, so the little guy feels he has a
chance. That will double the numbers." It didn't work. Club advocates
said "tasking must ignore gliders below 1.0 handicap so we can have
real races, that will bring them all out." It didn't work. World class
advocates at IGC said "build a simple cheap one design glider so you
can have the "purest" race possible, and they'll line up for it" It
didn't work.

The path we have followed with club class is designed to build
participation without going out on a cliff that falls to pieces if the
theory is wrong again. We start with strong encouragement for
regional and super regional competitions, where you can experiment
with handicap ranges, rules tweaks, etc., find out what works in the
US, with our base of pilots and gliders. Build a base. That has been
successful, though the 10-12 gliders that show up were a good deal
below the forecasts. Anyway, kudos to those who worked hard on it. We
included lots of above sweeteners for club within sports nationals.
Now it has grown to the point that we can split sports nationals in
two, but keeping the upper limit where it was all along in the US
(V1/20ABC). You have everything you want, you just have to let a few
1-34s play along. The idea "20 gliders are waiting to come to
nationals, as soon as you write a rule that the 1-34 can't come
pollute our contest" is just silly.

This is realistic and responsible. Just pounding for "pure club class
now" -- and damn the torpedoes we all go home if not enough show up --
is not. Get 30 "club" gliders to show up at Mifflin, figure out where
the low performance gliders can go, and we can start talking about
next steps.

John Cochrane