Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Brasilia day 2

Today was looking like another great day so they called a 135km task with two turnpoints and goal in the Esplanada. I had a great start headed off down the ridge for the 1st turnpoint 35kms away. Everyday Tv crews are at takeoff and in the goal. The gaggle went more into the valley and ran down the clouds. I got stuck a couple of times on the ridge and when I reached the turnpoint the gaggle was high above me. I just decided to relax and get high before I tried to chase the gaggle down. We were now heding back down the ridge towards launch for the 2nd waypoint. I had a couple of good climbs and when I arrived at the turnpoint I came in on top of the gaggle. Dustin and I headed more to the west for some clouds and got a good thermal. Moyes on top of the gaggle. We were now in front and alone again but with good clouds and only 45kms to fly. Dustin and I flew together for a couple of thermals before he went more downwind for a cloud. I did not like his decision so I crossed a blue hole hoping to get a good climb on the otherside. I arrived low and had to take some crappy lift for a while to gain some altitude. Dustin stayed high and saw me circling and crossed over to me arriving 2,000ft above my head. Dustin went on final and I was left circling and then was joined by Nene and a few others. I left on a shallow final and Nene followed me from 16kms out at 12:1 with a light tailwind. I managed to pull 30 seconds on him plus some height arrving in 2nd place again 4.5 minutes behind Dustin. 28 pilots made goal again with lots of crash landings due to conditions and many pilots trying to land at once. We found out today that we will get to drop our worse score after the 5th round so the scores will change a lot in a few days.