Those who participated in the Fall Classic, it's debrief time. This is the opportunity for thinking about what we as racers did well, didn't do well and what we can do next time to improve our skill level. It is not so much what you did vs others (ie placings) as what you did vs your own current and future potential. Racing in my mind is a lot like an obstacle course - as your skills progress, you can more easily overcome obstacles like gusts, choppy water (especially in transitions) and being where you want to be when you want (ie starts). The beauty of it is that these newly acquired skills translate to more fun on the freeride days.

This is also a good time for less experienced to ask questions and seek advice. We're here to learn and there's no such thing as a goofy question.
I'll start off and perhaps inspire others to post or I'll just look like an a$$ being the only poster. Oh well, racing is about taking chances, isn't it?

What I felt good about: I've never been super snappy in my tacks so spent a lot of the previous week working on them. I had one not so good practice session where I dunked myself three times trying to tack quickly. That evening, in search of wisdom, I consulted some forum threads elsewhere and spent a lot of time watching videos. I saw two big things to work on: stay off the water as long as possible and don't be in front of the sail mast for more than a split second. The next day and this past weekend I did some pretty good ones. But I still fell on one Sunday when I was really pushing it in light air.
I also felt better about timing things before the start. Having the horns helps a lot. I wasn't very aggressive in the starts because one longboarder in particular felt very uncomfortable around foils and it simply wasn't worth pushing things since I would have plenty of speed anyway.
I had spent a lot of the days prior to the race agonizing over sail choice. I'm usually good with the 8.0 up into the lower 20s but the forecast was for more. However, the lulls in front of the LLSC can be big and I didn't want to chance being stuck on the water. I decided to rig big but flat and the sail was much more manageable than I expected.

What I want to do better: Tacks - there's still a long way to go. In less powered downwind runs, I need to get in the back strap (it's really scary). In light air, it's really worth overstanding the windward mark (go higher than you normally would). Sunday's second race had the windward mark just a bit in the shadow of Old Fed and twice I ran out of juice just short of it.

Observations: Even though port tack was favored a couple of times, it wasn't worth trying anything on a foil as the start line was too close to the right side of the bay. By going on starboard, I could make the windward mark in only two tacks while port would have require three. My big surprise of the weekend was that I spent Saturday overshimmed. I usually sail my bigger foil wing with half degree more shim but apparently had not swapped that shim out when I switched down to the smaller 900. Having the addtional front foot pressure (that I really didn't notice) really helped fly steady upwind and made downwind jibes very easy. I know it's uncomfortable for a lot of people but don't be shy of having a decent amount of front foot pressure on your foil. When going upwind, it helps from keeping the board from diving as you heel it and makes jibes very easy as the board wants to fly very level through the turn even with the front arm extended (which tends to pull the nose down a bit). Obviously if the nose wants to climb to the sky, that's not a good thing but if you are having to always use back foot pressure to fly level, consider tuning stuff (shim, mast track).