This analysis of U.S. contest scoring algorithms was motivated because I fly a lot of regional and national contests, and I often was in the position of not believing the scores posted on the day’s score sheet.  However, each time I tried to do a simple calculation to check the scores, I quickly got lost in the details of the scoring expressions.  Finally I sat down and did a thorough mathematical analysis of the scoring formulas and discovered they were a lot more complex than most people (including myself) thought.  I originally intended to give this presentation at the 2010 SSA convention in Little Rock, AR but that didn’t work out for one reason or another, and it was delayed until the recent 2011 SSA Convention in Philadelphia, PA instead.  This turned out to be fortuitous because I was able to also illustrate the effect of some fairly significant last-minute changes to the scoring rules for the 2011 season.   As always, I would love to hear your comments and/or critique of the presentation.  Enjoy!