Thursday

Whoo what a day. This place rocks - that's all there is to it.. An 80k race to goal today which ended with strong winds at goal and several pilots questioning the call by the task committee. The local pilots felt sure that the winds which come every afternoon wouldn't come until an hour later than they did. Boy, if you can predict the winds that closely in a place like this you are one heck of a forecaster and should do it for a living!!

I went on final glide with a 5 to 1 ratio and I still didn't make it and got absolutely drilled in the process, watching a couple of others just in front of me, but lower get pummeled in the strong winds. I did make the end of speed section so I'll only lose 20% of my speed points which shouldn't hurt to bad. I got to practice landing going backwards so that was good and ended up really well. I just grabbed the A risers on one side, and the trailing edge of the other and yanked them both as I was touching the ground and the glider was instantly disabled and didn't even try to re-inflate in the 25-30mph winds. A couple of others wern't so lucky and tried to get a few more meters out of their glide and landed in some big sugar cane fields. I was kind of disappointed that I didn't make the actual 200 meter goal cylinder because when I was 5 or 6 kilometers out from goal I was flying through some monster lift and not turning because I was sure I was going to make it no problem!! It's amazing considering how many turns I did today thermaling around the course... I only needed a couple more and I would have made it! The battery on my radio had died earlier and they were warning people on the radio to get extra altitude before trying to make the goal.... OH WELL!

Ended up in 6th place yesterday on the 100k race and I finally broke down and looked at the results today. I'm all the way back to 23rd - YOO HOOO!! That means after todays finish I'll be back into preferred launching status - life is good! Unfortunately, I couldn't help but run the scenario of just making goal in the middle of the pack on the second day instead of bombing out..... that's right, I'd be in first place by over 200 points!! Can we just do a little rewind please? Dennis Kortel is just killing it making great decisions each and every day.

This has been some of the best, if not the best training session I've ever had for XC racing... Got off to a rough start in terms of organization but has really improved since the onsite pwc observer took over the position of organizer...

My back took a real beating yesterday on that 3 hour retrieve sitting on a straight back bench seat. I've been spending time on the hard floor and doing lots of stretching to keep myself functional. I may go see if I can find someone to give me a massage here in a bit. I always get stronger at these things but the process is painful sometime until I get over the hump...I think the last few days here I'll let one of the kids earn some $ by hauling my glider up to launch for me... Either that or there is a guy with horse who is hauling up gliders... It's only 10 minutes or so but it's alot of uphill. Was nice today landing close to Roldanillo, even if I did land going backwards...

Weather is looking great for the next few days.... Looking forward to getting to Valle de Bravo and hooking up with Sue and just hanging out for a few days!

Jack