Contest Class Development for Future Success
The Case for developing the Un-Flapped Classes
Recently we have seen changes in the classes for IGC World
Championships (World class out, 20m seater in, and 13.5m in the starting blocks) and a
lot of dynamics in the attendance of existing Nationals classes in the US. Flapped Classes remain reasonably strong at US
level with no interest in combining classes (e.g Standard and 15m) with
handicapping.
Most significantly we have now got separate Club Class
Nationals at the Sports Class events, and notably the Standard Class was
recently cancelled (2014) due to insufficient attendance for a money making contest.
This
was due to several factors, most importantly that the Nationals was scheduled
to clash with the Standard World Champs, several other competitive pilots
were unable to attend and there was no class combination to build critical attendance
mass for the contest organizers to break even.
We cannot afford to miss
contests or pilot selection opportunities for competitive World Championships
classes.
There are two problems here – appropriate contest scheduling
and appropriate class groupings for each contest are necessary – higher attendance
at competition classes raises the competitiveness across the board and increase
the fun factor for all.
Admittedly, scheduling contests in the US is fraught with difficulties
of location, willing site organizers and volunteer burnout – however these can
be minimized with sensible pre-planning in contest classes. The first need is to
ensure we co-locate suitable classes so
that minimum pilot attendance for financial contest viability is reasonably assured. Secondly, for
the handicapped classes we need to collocate classes that can be reasonably be
combined if that ever becomes necessary.
In the US we have already created limited handicapping for
standard class, and this makes it a perfect candidate to collocate with Club. In addition, the limited range handicap in Standard makes a perfect bridge for
Club class pilots in LS4’s and Discii to transition to Standard class without
having to purchase a new glider.
It would also be possible to select both Club and Standard Class
pilots from a ‘Uber-Club’ combined (as opposed to collocated) class event should
things ever come to that, since again , Standard handicaps are within the Club class
range.
Club and Standard remain very popular and competitive at the
World level, and we need to ensure we support these classes here at home to
allow selection of pilots to represent the US. Club class is the future of US soaring,
particularly for new and Junior pilots and Standard is currently the flagship class
of the Unflapped World championships. We
need to support and grow both these complementary classes.
Handicapped classes are encouraged for low cost highly
competitive racing – particularly important for developing juniors, feminine, 2 seater and 13.5m classes for the future.
Recommendation
Appropriate class co-location is critical for healthy class
development. The following class groupings will provide good attendance and
viability for the most classes with the fewest Nationals events. 7 Classes are
taken care of with 4 events per year.
Club,
and Standard
15m
& Open
18m
& 20m
Sports & 13.5m
Particularly important is the combination of Club and
Standard classes in 1 large well attended event.
Sports Class remains critical as an incubator for new
classes and new pilots particularly Juniors. 20m 2-seater should be handicapped to
promote entries and competitiveness.
There is nothing particularly wrong with our team selection
method at this time - however it needs to be supported by contest planning that supports new pilot development – improved US team performance will come from increased
team member training in the short term and from better attended, more
competitive contest classes in the long term.
Additionally, centrally located contest sites with dedicated support from
the SSA will reduce the east-west driving time burden and help improve contest
attendance and competitiveness.
