You go to the Sidewinder showroom at Leesti shipyard. You pay the dealer for your Sidewinder. And you fly it directly from the showroom to the duel. You can stop by the coachworks for a different paintjob or decals, but nothing that affects the performance.
The main part of Fighter Club is the list..
DAYRTH
MYV.HS
FRANK
NOOBDELUX
CERTACITO
BOBBALONG
ARTEMIS DUKE
ODDPOTATO
PSYKOKOW
EID LEWEISE
THEO BLINKS III
ASTACED
This is what makes the fight as fair as possible. You choose to challenge the position in the list which you think you can win. If you pick an easy fight then you don't get so high up the ladder.
Of course the ladder doesn't really represent the skill of the players. I've seen psykokow fight in CQCC and I know he is a good pilot, but he only took part in the duels once when we were drumming up business by taking it to Lave Radio.
Good pilots who don't take part in the duels slowly slip down the ladder, whilst really bad pilots who have to attend the event as they are organising it, can stay up the list as high as third place.
Some of the participants have suggested a points system rather than this list, but I like the casual nature of this way of keeping score. It means people who join the club late are not put at an unfair disadvantage.
And the gentlemanly agreements of the fights means the ladder system has a trick up its sleeve. Two people can arrange a duel themselves, at a different time and space. It doesn't have to be Sidewinders. It doesn't even have to be symmetrical weapons. As long as both parties agreed to the arrangement, and they both PM me with all the details I need, then I'll modify the ladder as per the result of that duel.