Rat Race Day 7 - Final Task

I just got into a new Motel room in Lakeview after a 3 hour drive & it's late, so I'll keep it short.

Today the weather was great. The task committee anticipated high winds blowing after 3:30 pm so they designed a task that was doable and then they required all scores to be based on the position of the pilot at 3:15 pm & penalties to those who had not landed prior to 3:30pm. They wanted all pilots on the ground & accounted for by 4 pm.

I flew this task as well as I have flown any before. I only spent 10 minutes on Woodrat before diving over to Burnt Mtn. so the start could be staged correctly. All I needed to do was find lift & get high. . .

The start was a minute or two late but allowed me to renter the lift at Burnt with 20 other pilots working to also get high. I headed to the next turnpoint when a few of the top pilots did but knew they would run away from me on the upwind leg. I was fortunate & found a nice 400'/min. thermal that gave me the 2000' add'l altitude to hit the turnpoint & swing downwind for the glide to Poorman's. When I hit Poorman's I was heading directly for a thermal that two other guys were working. On the way to their thermal, I found one of my own - A 1000'/min. fat, beauty the gave me 2400' in only three minutes and about 9 turns.

Life was good - I had goal made & only 1 more turnpoint & goal to hit. On the way to goal I squeezed about 1/2 speedbar, which I considered to be plenty with the turbulence I was encountering. Some other pilots seemed to be more comfortable on bar. We had one injury & reserve toss today. There were 20 pilots in goal when I landed - I placed 29th for the day!

Results are not on the web yet, but I placed 7th in the Old dude category. In Serial class I was 13th. Overall I was 51st & Dave wasn't much behind me - He had a bad day today, which hurt his score. It's just a warm up for the Nats ;-) Larry N. from Sprinville did a respectable 3rd place in the Old-dude category & went to goal almost every day.

I can't wait for the sun to come up on the dawn of the first day of the US Nationals tomorrow. I ready for some rock & roll flying to 14,000' - I hope all the talk of big air isn't bombast. The main concern over here, is that it's forecast to be windy. We'll see.

Wish Dave & I luck!

Timo

The flight is HERE

Results for the last day & cumulative scores will be HERE, soon.