Amy and I arrived a couple days early and made a little cabin in the Glades RV Resort our home for the next 10 days. The Glades RV resort is nicely located less than 1 mile from the flight park, its pretty cheap, and the cabins have stoves, showers, refrig, microwave, and Air cond.......what more could you ask for.
The first couple days were blown out, well for me and the other solo pilots anyway. It was blowing 17-20+mph on the ground both days. It didn't stop the park from doing tandems though....they were knocking them out. Watching the tug parked at about 800ft was interesting.
We didn't get the numbers of big name pilots in attendance at the Team Challenge, like originally touted, but were still blessed with the likes of Steve Larson, Derrick Turner and a Spanish pilot named Pedro. Each one of them was a Team Leader. There were three teams: "Air Hogs", "Below Me" (be careful how you say this one
), and "Cloudbase". "Air Hogs" was a mostly Russian team that was lead by Derrick Turner, they ended up winning the comp. "Below Me" was lead by Steve Larson and we finished second (this was my team). and "Cloudbase" was a mostly Guatemalan team that was lead by Pedro.
Although my team, "Below Me", finished second, it wasn't do to any wonderful performances by me. Despite having some great XC flights for me, I didn't end up making goal on any of the days. Luckily we had an ace pilot like Steve Larson in the lead, a wonderful Canadian Pilot named John Theoret, and our own local great pilot Matt Christensen all kicking butt and keeping our points up. It was a great team atmosphere and everyone was helping each other out. Amy and Matt's wife Erica were a big help not only to our team with carts and retrievals but also helping with carts for all the teams! Thank you ladies!!
For me it was a great learning opportunity. Although I didn't make goal I did have some wonderful flights down there that I will not soon forget.Flying at cloudbase, just below 6,000ft, under some of the nicest looking cummies was one of them! For a new, aspiring XC pilot like myself there were tons of lessons to learn each day. Talking with the more experienced pilots post flight and finding out what strategies they used was also very cool.
If you are a newer pilot and have been considering doing a "comp", don't wait any longer. The atmosphere is fun and friendly and there is lots to learn. The camaraderie that took place at the two Team Challenges I have gone too is awesome. It is a chance to hang out and fly with people that love what you do. I am definitely encourage to do as many "comps" as I can. Even though I might be at the bottom of the leader board for some time to come, it is a lot of fun. Nowhere else you can you get that many pilots together, flying, hanging out and having fun for that many days.
Hope to see you out there......if you do make it out, don't follow me...I probably picked a bad line and will be coring sink soon
Jon
