Paris Williams <<parisflies>>
writes:

Here are the group of five pilots who are currently ranked as 1-5
according to the interim rankings and who have been requested to offer our input
in the rule change and the rule interpretation:

Kraig Coomber, Zac Majors, Paris Williams, Mitch Shipley, James Stinnett

Just to clarify, for those who aren't informed, there are two separate issues
here:

(1) there has been a request to add one more meet into the scoring after the
cutoff date as written in the rules. The competition committee has already
decided not to change the rules last minute and therefore not to allow this meet
to be scored in the current cycle. We (the group listed above) were asked for
our opinion on the matter, since we are the ones who could potentially be most
adversely impacted by this rule change.

(2) there is some ambiguity in the rules regarding the beginning of the team
selection cycle, and we were asked to also offer input on this.

Davis has completely represented our response. We have readily acknowledged that
we are unable to be impartial in this decision, given that all the scores have
already been tallied, as are any other pilots who may be affected by any rule
changes or rule clarifications (including Davis). In spite of Davis's assertion,
we believe that we have done the "honorable" thing and deferred all
responsibility for making these decisions back into the hands of the competition
committee, as we feel they represent the most impartial group in this regard.
Our initial response (sent out Monday) reflected this. As requested of us, this
response did include our suggestion with regard to the best interpretation of
the beginning of the team selection cycle--that the beginning stands as January
1, 2011--what has been reflected on the USHPA website's interim rankings for the
entire duration of the team selection cycle. However, after continued
discussion, we all agreed that we felt uncomfortable offering even this
suggestion, and so we retracted our suggestion in this regard. The main gist of
our response hasn't changed at all, however--we have already requested a
deferment of all responsibility for these decisions to the competition
committee, and we continue to hold this stance.

Following is our final response that we have sent to the CC:

1) Regarding the cutoff date for the team selection, we support the CC's
decision--which means keeping it as it clearly stands in the rule book and not
counting SCFR for the 2013 team. We feel that the CC represents the most
impartial group in this regard, we want to acknowledge that they have been
elected to make these kinds of decisions, and we want to support that process.

2) Regarding the beginning of the team selection cycle, we would also like to
defer the entire responsibility of making this decision to the relative
impartiality of the CC. Should they choose to seek input for this decision from
any of the competition pilots, we recommend that they seek input from a broader
range of pilots than just our group, since this decision will impact a broader
range of pilots that just us, and since we are not in the position to offer
impartial input in this regard.

Just to be clear, neither I nor Paris would be affected by any of the
clarifications.