- X. A Vision
- IX. Safety
- VIII. Rules
- VII. How will contest soaring evolve in response to these challenges?
- VI. New Classes
- V. New Races
- IV. Two Demographic Developments
- III. The future of Technology
- II. GPS
- I. Introduction (1985)
I have pointed to several changes going on at the same time.
- Declining participation
- Fragmentation into many small classes
- Nobody wants to drive.
On the last point. The vast majority of pilots do not cross the country for “national” contests. With the exception of 2-3 pilots desperate for team points under the current formula, most pilots fly something nearby, not in “their” class, rather than spend an extra week or two driving. Standard gliders go to 15, 15 meter gliders go to 18, 18 goes to open, and everybody goes to sports.
What to do? The answer is obvious once you state the question. We will have to merge classes with handicaps to form viable races.
Regionals already merge and do not offer all classes. Still, 5 classes with 6 gliders per class is not optimal. We’ll probably do more merging. Perhaps we’ll end up with just three handicapped classes, “FAI” with water, “club” and “low performance” will work; the handicap ranges can overlap and adjust to the gliders at hand.
Almost all countries already have adapted this way. As you can imagine, Belgium (say) does not try to offer separate nationals in Open, 20m duo (“Arcus class”), 18m, 15m, standard, club, 13.5m, junior, and feminine. They have a single, handicapped national. The US has only persisted as long as we have because we actually have a very large base of contest pilots compared to most other countries.
How to do it will be a hard problem. For us, it is mixed with the problem of distance. There has been a longstanding demand for something like separate “east” and “west” nationals, as driving a week each way is a large cost. New Zealand already does this, as the body of water separating them is larger than in our case.
We might end up just mixing a few classes – put standard and 15m together with 2% handicap; mix 18m and duo; or both of those with open; or other mixtures. Or we might go whole-hog and have “east” “west” and “central” contests with two or three handicapped ranges each.
Like other countries, team selection will have to abandon the idea that you win in a particular class to go to the worlds in that class. Instead, we’ll have to develop a ranking list, and go down that list to fill out our world team. This isn’t a bad move on its own; surely doing well in the 15 meter nationals tells you something about how good a standard class pilot is, without making him drive (say) from Boston to Ephrata.
While the details will take a lot of work, this is exactly how the vast majority of other countries have already adapted to the profusion of classes, so we’re not reinveting the wheel.
I hear the gnashing of teeth from many anguished friends who detest handicapped racing. I don’t like it either. I wish the IGC had settled on 3 reasonable classes that made sense at national and regional level as well as at world level. But until they do, I see no other way out of our quandary.
