SLOC is currently applying for an A-sanctioned Heartland Champs next November (2003). We may extend this to Midwest/Heartland if no Midwest club wants to do a separate championship (to my knowledge, neither region has held a championship for the last two years).

The meat of the meet will be classic 2-day (at Hawn – new map, 17 square K!), but I’m kicking around ideas for special things to do as part of Heartland Champs. One thing I’d like to do is shift the attention to team performance. Here are a few ideas:

Have a team score based on points (rather than combined time – which would be problematic across courses). Something similar to what Mook did with the Possum Trot standings. Points would be assigned by course/gender but not age group (for example, all Males on Red get lumped together). To count in the standings you’d have to be running at least your championship course (no green course for Snorkel!)

Have a relay on Friday. Start late enough that people could travel on Friday and still compete (first leg at 4PM or so). This would also have the anchor runner finishing after dark, which would be cool. To keep things from running too late into the night, each leg would actually be a score-O where the time limit would be maybe 50% greater than the expected sweep time. Each leg would get a different set of controls. The optimal sweep route would be fairly obvious so for fast teams it's still a head-to-head relay. I’m thinking 3-person teams might be better than 4 since some clubs in this region are pretty small. Larger clubs could always enter multiple teams. I’m not sure if separate 3 and 6 point divisions makes sense or if team composition can just be left open.

Another scheduling option would be to have shorter courses Saturday and then run the relay Saturday afternoon/evening. I like Friday better, because it also serves as a model event.

Extra incentives for participation (bonus point for having someone attend their first A-meet, etc.) These would not be enough to outweigh the actual competition, but might tip the scales in a tight race.

Comments and additional ideas welcome!

-- Eric (ejbuckley@earthlink.net), October 15, 2002

Answers

I like the ideas of having something on Friday and of having some sort of club/team scoring.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), October 15, 2002.

A long time ago, 1981 I think, we had an A meet at a place called Northfield Mt. in Western Mass., first time we had used the map. At that time, "team" competition was a normal part of an A meet. Teams were max of 5 people on the same course, best three times each day to count (so even if you screwed up one day, you could still help the team the other day). I think we had team competition on the Blue, Red , and Orange courses; there was no Green course then.

It was always a pain to figure out the team results when you were trying to get the awards going, and of course it was another set of awards to procure. But it did add something positive for many people who might not do well individually. Over the years this team idea slowly faded away.

Anyway, for the Northfield meet, John Rogers thought it would be a fine idea to have a night O' on Saturday night. He offered to make a special map (b/w of course) and set the courses, and there was enough open land around the Visitor's Center to do a night O' without worrying about losing people. In fact, there was enough light from the floodlights at the VC, and also from traffic headlights going by on the main road, that one of the rules of the night O' was that no flashlights were allowed. This was just as good, because we hadn't publicized the night O' in advance, so no one had brought lights anyway.

We had a couple of other special rules -- (1) one course, score-O, mass start, 30 minute time limit; (2) two classes, individual and team, where the teams were the same teams entered in the A meet; and (3) most important, any team that finished the night O' got a 10 minute time bonus for the weekend team competition.

We had something like 300 people for the A meet, of which something in the neighborhood of 200-250 ran the night O'. It was very cool. Almost total chaos (only 2 "officials", me and JR, and the finish line was quite busy), but lots of fun and I wonder if it's the largest night O' is US history. JR and I still laugh about it.

Back to the SLOC meet. Something special Saturday afternoon/evening is better because everyone is already there. Make it fast and fun, competitor and spectator fr

-- peter (pg@crocker.com), October 16, 2002.

Something special Saturday afternoon/evening is better because everyone is already there.

Maybe it could be the Heartland Sprint O' Champs.

Peter, is it true that you'll only orienteer in St Louis if they pay you? Will the Heartland Champs include a special fee (maybe a buck or two per competitor) to raise money to pay Peter to attend?

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), October 16, 2002.

Geez, I forgot SLOC used to pass out the big bucks. Come to think of it, maybe that's why I never returned to the Possum Trot, since my check never arrived after the first one....

-- peter (pg@crocker.com), October 16, 2002.

That must explain why US Champs are charging $23/day. I wonder if the PG fund will become a separate line item on the standard entry form. Perhaps we could find some ex-AA consultants to come up with creative ways to hide the allocation.

A thought I had for Saturday afternoon was a control pickup score-O. To get credit for a control, you would have to actually bring the control back to the finish. This would lead to many intersting stratgic decisions since spending extra time to go to a high point control could be rewarded by finding the control already taken. Teams would have to allocate their resources carefully as each team member would only be allowed to bring back a single control.

I suppose we'd need a rule against ambushing teams and stealing their controls. Fisticuffs at the control site in the case of a close arrival would also need to be discouraged.

-- Eric (ejbuckley@earthlink.net), October 17, 2002.