One thing I forgot about until the NHCQualify.com contest was over, was that you get more points towards the NHC Tour Points championship, the higher you finish in the contest standings.
The NHC Tour Points contest is won by the person who gets the most points in 2010 from his or her top 5 contests during the year.
I signed up for the Tier 1 option, meaning for $100 I get to compete in 5 free online contests, whose prizes are NHC qualifying spots (no cash prize for this option). I signed up for this as front to a group of ARV viewers, who supply the ARV sessions and judgings for contest races, and will share in any winnings.
Since I already have qualified for the NHC in January, the incentive for me now in these contests is the NHC Tour Points championship for the year.
If (when!) I win this, and also win the NHC Tournament in January, then I get a $2 million bonus, which I will share with the ARV group (details on that coming soon 😉 )
Now, you can get NHC Tour Points for most of the NHC-sanctioned contests – including the ones at NHCQualify.com.
In fact, my 3rd place finish was worth 1,575 points, and I am now in 17th place:
So my intent with this is to get enough points in 4 more contests this year to be the Winner of the NHC Tour Points contest for 2010.
In all NHC contests, points are awarded as follows: 3,000 for 1st, 2,100 for 2nd, 1,575 for 3rd, and on down – the top 10% of finishers earn points.
The winner at year’s end last year had 11,425 points.
Only your top 5 contest scores count towards this total.
So my intent is to win 4 more contests, which would give me a total of 13,575 points, and win the NHC Tour Points.
Now, in this past contest, remember I was second going into the last race, only 30 cents ahead of 3rd.
At the time I did not realize that 2nd was so much better than 3rd – I had thought I needed only to be in the top 8 to qualify, I had forgotten about the Points contest.
I picked my Targ CR of 7 horse, who ran out; my logical horse, the favorite, who did feel good, won easily.
It turned out that the guy in 4th place had this horse, so he passed me and finished 2nd, beating me by $1.70 out of $96.
So if I had also had the favorite, I would have finished 2nd, and earned 525 more tour points.
But I doubt if I would have made that pick even if I had realized the Points situation.
If my Targ CR 7 horse had won, I would have finished first – and since he was such a highly rated ARV choice (my highest ever!), I cannot think I would have changed my pick.
There will be plenty of future chances to make points 😉
So now I am focused on my intent to Win this NHC Tour Points championship, by winning 4 more contests this year.