Thursday, August 10, 2006

Pre Worlds day 4

Today was looking promising with cloudbase expected to be even higher and lighter winds later in the day. The task committee decided on a 159kms triangle bringing us back to the airport for the first time. They also decided on making a race start for the top 30 pilots at 2:15pm cause yesterday having 4 starts seemed to make decisions difficult on when to start. We towed up and and started at just over 8,000ft with a 30kms tailwind to the first turnpoint.The wind was stronger than expected so it was going to be a long day given the task on hand. I was going good out in front with Gerolf and soon we had rounded the first TP and were faced with a strong cross headwind for the second leg. We were getting some great climbs of 1,000 ft/pm to 10,000 ft which was going to make the task a little easier. I decided to go more straight line for the 2nd TP and got low and spent some time scratching about 30kms out. I finally got up and ended back up with the gaggle I had left behind earlier. We had a few more good climbs and I could see the leaders about 10kms in front of us. We rounded the last turnpoint high and did a long glide and came in a few hundred feet below the main gaggle as they got low after the TP. I was flying with Chris and Kraig and we were realing the others in pretty fast considering how far behind we were 20 minutes ago. A couple more good climbs and we soon went on final for goal. We had a 30kms headwind and my 4030 race told me that I would just make it and I trusted in it even though it was looking iffy at times. I ended up going into ground effect and then crossing the goal line and landed 30 metres after it. Andre Wolf won the day followed by Attila,Brett,Kraig me. There was 31 pilots that made goal and a few good pilots that blew their final and landed just short some as close as 20 feet before the line. That really suxs after battling such a hard course and receiving hardly any points for it. There was a Wills Wing T2 that tumbled today along the course after the pilot tried to enter a dust devil several times and on the 4th atempt got pitch up and ended up in the sail and broke a downtube. He then deployed his parachute and came down softly without any injuries to himself. I believe this is the first tumble at this comp besides Kevins aerobatic failure last year. The thermals are big here but seem to be quite smoothe even the real strong ones. The full scores can be veiwed by clicking on the link above.