Inaccurate Contest Scoring

At 14:18 04 June 2004, Bill Feldbaumer wrote:
On the second day of this year's 15 Meter Nationals,
Karl Striedieck
chose the best direction for his flight and smoked
the rest of the
field. He made 63.7 mph, 8 mph better than the second
pilot and 14 mph
better than the third. Did he get 1000 points for this
outstanding
performance? No, he received only 852 points. The reason
was that some
other pilots chose less favorable directions for their
flights and
landed out. That devalued the day and Karl's score.
The more poorly
Karl's competitors did, the lower his score became.
Karl should have
stood by the finish line and urged his competitors
to come home so
that he could have received a better score!

In racing sports world wide, an individual's score
is determined by
his performance alone. Soaring is the only racing sport
that allows an
individual's score to be affected by the performances
of his
competitors. It should not be this way. It can be changed.

It is possible to make a rational analysis of scoring
systems rather
than just accepting 'the way things have always been
done.' Any one
interesting in doing so could start with my posting
on r.a.s.,
10/2/2003, 'History of Contest Scoring.'

Bill Feldbaumer 09


I do not fly contests. But I agree the proper measures
should be in place if you are going to hold a race.
The proper measure is not distance, but speed. Seems
clear the question is who can fly the fastest, not
who can fly the farthest.

GPS provides this solution for the pilot. With a simply
program written for a PDA, the current average speed
is easily shown in terms how fast is the pilot flying
AWAY from the last turnpoint.

No need to just count the miles flown. Just figure
out who is flying the fastest around the course.

How do you score this for a week-long contest? You
can not just add the speeds together each day (nor
distance for that matter). Each day should be counted
the same....just like in MotoGP motorcycle racing where
each race is counted the same, whether that race was
in the rain, sun, cold, or whatever. 15 points for
first place, 14 points for second...on down to 1 point
for 15th place. Everyone else gets no points, including
those who do not finish (DNF sailplanes that land out,
I say). End of the week, your best pilot will be the
pilot with the highest point total. The week was what
it was...you cant try to alter or devalue the points
to some nominal expectations of what the conditions
should be....if it rains all week, it rains, deal with
it...do not pretend we can devalue the points as if
the weather were better.