The current thread on contest glider types, classes and desirability to handicap puts me in mind back to when
1960s - the belief was that handicapping couldn't work
1970s - Wallington scoring method (used at Horsham) scored the highest rate of climb for the day to determine the winning glider/pilot using a graphic set of polar overlays
1980s - some work was done by Peter Rigby, with approaches similar to Anthony Smith today
(my memory says British Std thermal was 2 knots?, and the Oz was averaged across the polar 1-8)
Sports class used that approach in conjunction with the particular task setting
when Club Class evolved and AAT, the mix changed and recreated the issues the earlier integrated system had solved
today - there is still handicapping, differing in type and detail in different classes
in vintage, it seems well received, in other places it is dismissed completely, in the middle ground its use is tempered with what you want to achieve.
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