How To Score A Gold Cup Race

Gold Cup Race scoring is a little world unto itself. Point totals, not victory in the final heat, determine the winner. Three 30-mile heats constitute a race, with each boat running two preliminary heats and one final heat. Since no heat can have more than seven boats, the two heats are divided into seven-boat sections and numbered, as in the Mapes Cup, 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B. The entrants in each preliminary heat are determined by draw, and the seven eligible for the final heat are those scoring the highest in preliminary heats. First place in any heat is worth 400 points, second place 300, third place 225. In addition, a boat can earn up to 800 bonus points by turning in the fastest heat in the whole meet or the fastest three-heat average—400 for the fastest heat, 400 for the fastest race average. Thus, for example, Boat A may run a close second to Boat B in each of two very fast preliminary heats. Boat C, in its two preliminary heats, takes it easy, winning in slower time. In the final heat, Boat B, which twice beat Boat A, fails to finish. Boat A comes in a close second to Boat C. Yet Boat A, with two second places in fast preliminary heats and a second in a final heat, has 900 points plus 400 bonus points for the fastest three-heat average. (Since Boat B, with the fastest heat times, failed to finish all three heats, no one gets the 400 points for the fastest heat.) Boat C has only 1,200 points and thus places second over-all in spite of her three wins.