Michigan rankings

[Springman]

I am sure there are other threads concerning this issue, but this one seems to be near the top. Please do not take offense if your team is mentioned in the following. I am only using team numbers to reference what I see as a potential FIM point system problem. 67, 216 and 1918 have all competed exceptionally this year.

Originally Posted by Don Wright

The problem is that because 216 was one of the few lucky teams to be able to go to a third event for $500, if the points or results were able to be counted, isn't that not fair to other teams that could not go to a third event (due to no slots available), even though they improved their robot significantly in their second event (830 comes to mind)?

I commend 216 on their improvement and think it's great that they did so well at WM. But they had the pleasure of a third event for $500 which is AWSOME in it's own right. Some of us that want a third event have to pay $4000 for that...

In retrospect, I think that you may have hit on the real issue. If you look at the competitions this past weekend, there was a significant impact by teams entering their third competition. 67, 216 and 1918 are just a couple examples of teams that 'took' points out of the system that other teams near the middle of the pack could have used. Consider what these two events in particular would have been like without teams competing in their third event. At West Michigan, there were over 90 points (30 each for the win and 15 each for the 2 seed captain/selection) removed from the system by 1918 and 216 alone for their victory. Right now I feel that FIM should seriously consider not allowing a third event for any team because of this impact.