Another task won by the weather

After a really fun race day yesterday, today we spent several hours up on launch waiting for conditions to improve enough to have a race. Things finally came together and we launched and all got to cloud base and it looked like it was going to be a really fun and fast task. Unfortunately, a small group of pilots went really deep into the terrain and found the winds there strong over the back and some rotor so they called conditions "level 3" which means that it's not safe to continue the race so it was cancelled - even though there were over 100 of us enjoying very nice conditions at cloud base.

Yesterday the weather presented us with some very challenging conditions out on the course line with lots of clouds shading things and making the course very difficult in places. I had a pretty descent start but still couldn't keep up with the lead gaggle. After the second turn point the entire lead gaggle of over 50 pilots were all headed into completely shaded terrain and it looked to me like they were all going to just "race to the dirt". So, after getting the turn point I decided to turn around and go back with a few other pilots in the direction we had just come from and see if we could get back to the sunny area which would still be working. As it turns out, even though it wasn't the most direct route to the next turn point, many other pilots did in fact race to the dirt in the shaded area. I was very patient and eventually conditions really improved and it was fun racing the rest of the 78k course, finishing in the top 20! I was very happy to get out of triple digits and into the 90s overall.

The weather overall hasn't been too good to us. Seems like we are flying about every other day or so. It's really a beautiful flying site and we are enjoying our stay but I, for one, and am ready to be home for awhile! We have 2 more possible flying days and then it will be over, and the weather is looking marginal so we'll see what happens....

Sue and Kim, along with a couple of other lady companions, all drove up to Tuscany, Italy, for a couple of days of sight seeing.