Grand Prix Rules 2022-2023

For those new to the club, here is a summary of the GP rules.

The GP comprises 16 races which are published in this list (updated when the race calendar is available). The races are spread from the start of the Scottish Athletics Winter season (late September/early October) through to the start of the Summer holiday period (late June/early July). Of the 16 races,  only each runner's best 11 points scores count. Restricting the competition to 11 races is supposed to give everyone the freedom to miss some races if ill or injured and still be in with a shout of winning. The scoring system for the men's and women's Grand Prix is the same.

Points are awarded from 12 to 1 point to each Harrier completing the race. 12 points are awarded to the first Harrier, 1 point to the 12th Harrier and all Harriers finishing lower than 12th. 

Each Harrier starts the season with a certain number of jokers (see later) and can earn more jokers by competing in Grand Prix races. Playing a joker doubles the points scored by that Harrier (e.g. a Harrier finishing 11th and scoring 2 points can double this to 4 points by playing a joker). Multiple jokers can be played at once, each joker doubling the score up to a maximum of 24 points (e.g. the Harrier finishing 10th and scoring 3 points and playing 2 jokers scores 3 x 2 x 2 = 12 points; playing 3 jokers scores 3 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 24 points; playing 4 jokers scores 3 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 24 points with the 4th joker wasted as the maximum points score of 24 has been achieved with 3 jokers).

A Harrier scoring 8 points or less (including the effect of playing jokers) in a race earns 1 extra joker to play at a subsequent race. A Harrier scoring 3 points or less (including the effect of playing jokers) in a race earns 2 extra jokers to play at a subsequent race.

Extra jokers are earned by completing a certain number of Grand Prix races:

• 1 extra joker after 5 races
• 1 extra joker after 8 races
• 2 extra jokers after 11 races

Jokers were assigned to each Harrier at the start of the season prior to the West District Cross Country relay as follows. Quite simply, anyone in training packs 1 to 7 starts the season with 1 joker, anyone in training packs 8 to 10 starts the season with 2 jokers. The jokers are frozen as of the first race of the season, so if a person changes pack through the season, the start jokers do not change. 

Anyone joining the club in the coming year gets the number of jokers relevant to the pack they are in at the time of the first GP race they do for the club.

However, anyone joining the club after the halfway point of the season (i.e. after race 8) gets only 1 joker to start with.

Alan