Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Sole Survivor

Today we saw the best weather we've seen all week, with good thermal development and higher inversions (9000 feet or higher). So the task committee called a 72 km task with a really difficult set of turnpoints. Finally we had a task that the serious top competition pilots were happy about, and one where a smaller and more average number of pilots made goal - about a third of them. Of course that means that only the serious top competition pilots would be among that select group. Like Nick for example. He fought hard and pulled off many low saves to make goal today, his fourth comp day ever, on the longest and hardest task. No other Hawaii pilots made it -- the rest of us hit the dirt all along the course route. But thanks to Nick, we are continuing to make sure that Hawaii is represented at the goal line every day of the comp so far.

Preliminary overall standings for Hawaii pilots after four tasks:

51 Alex
56 Ray
59 Jeff
68 Dexter (Maui)
69 Marty (Maui)
73 Scrappy
76 Nikki
79 Quentin
80 Paul (Maui)
84 Rick (Maui)
90 Greg
99 Bob