Benalla

Winning a day against those guys is quite an accomplishment.

Racing is making decisions based on estimated probabilities. As BB points out, scoring affects those decisions because it skews the upside/downside payoffs. Limited upside and huge downside equals risk averse behavior to maximize total score. Landouts and devaluation are one way this happens but speed points are another.

Example - The prior race day I stayed up late watching the final leg. Early on that leg you were basically tied for fastest speed with the pilot who ultimately won the day - and about 10 km behind him. It seems that you were both ahead of the main gaggle. It wasn't clear if there were tracker-less gliders with either of you - you looked to be alone. The ultimate winner seemed to connect with better lift and maintained speed while you lost about 6kph. In a straight proportional speed scoring system you'd have scored 940 points, but IGC scoring spreads the speed points out about 2x versus straight pro-rata points allocation so you ended up with 888 I think, or almost double the points gap.

Another reason why people are well-advised to stick with the gaggle unless they are highly confident (high estimated probability) they can maintain any "lone wolf" advantage.

People back here are pulling for all you guys.

9B

Andy:
Actually, the IGC effort to give 2 x speed points is a completely needless complication. Speed points are twice as easy to lose -- and twice as easy to get. So it makes absolutely no difference to strategy . All it does is to make 300 distance points the same thing as US 600 distance points -- which is why the US raised speed points to about 600. That's why I dropped the 2 x speed and raised distance points in the suggestion.
John Cochrane