2010 Finals Venue - More Fuel for the Fire.

 I have been watching with great interest the debate over the upcoming team finals location talk with great interest as the outcome will impact me as much as all of the rest of you. My geographical location is pretty well in the middle between Lost Hills and Muncie so the logistical issues are a wash for me. Regardless of my own bias on the issue I have tried to really look at the pros and cons of the competing proposals with the bigger picture in mind. I have a natural skew towards Lost Hills as my favorite flying site simply because I have a storage container at Lost Hills and my chase bike and other equipment makes it easy for me to lean toward Lost Hills. Clearly it would be easier for me to vote for Lost Hills as it is a known quantity and better weather than most places in the country. However, unlike many of my competitor friends I do not agree that having a great flying site is paramount to picking a good team nor should it be the over-riding issue in picking the finals site.

I have flown on a number of overseas flying sites over 30 years and most of them were similar to Muncie (including flying at Muncie) in many ways including crops, interesting weather, trees, canals, honery livestock, fences, and such. Having flown in many contests of this type I never felt that the contest was compromised in any way rather the contests were simply challenging in different ways. Flying in these types of sites have trade offs and competitive decisions that have to be made round by round. The contest is defined by the site and we as competitors have to make decisions in tactics that may not come into play when flying at the perfect flying site. It is a game of more than simply trying to get the max when there are other challenges in the mix. I have cut my DT time in the past due to the vagaries of the contest site. 

For me there is also a fairness doctrine that we need to think about regarding the finals locations. I don’t think it is wise for us to bias our decisions towards the “perfect flying site” as It much as we have been in the past. To me it is an example of the “smart, but not wise” point of view.

So with all this said and I am throwing my vote to having the finals at Muncie or some other site than Lost Hills. Denver is a possible as well. The issue of having a summer finals with the idea of having the juniors flying as well is very compelling as well and I would support that change as well.  Most of the world champs are held in the summer so there is no reason we shouldn’t do the same in our team efforts.

I hope the team selection committee will take all this in and look at the larger picture as I have laid it out. I know that many of my competitors do not agree with this but there is more at stake than simply having the finals at Shangrila CA.

Jon Davis aka Mac the Bigot