I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much stoke and so many smiles at a flying competition. In fact I know I haven’t. Yesterday’s Adventure Division leading athletes were first to the top, first to launch, immediately dialed up to cloudbase several thousand feet above 10,000′ Mt Edna, stylishly showing the Pro’s how to do it and quickly put the task to bed. The last TP for the Adventure Division was a half mile from goal and they were literally sprinting in, showing some serious heart and grit. The results for the Adventure Division are here. Congrats to winners, who came in at a virtual TIE taking different running routes Kris Souther and Jared Scheid! Animals!
Meanwhile our Pro Division athletes were flying fast, they all top landed within minutes of one another near the Junction launch turnpoint, lead by Logan Walters at TP 3. Logan unfortunately made a serious tactical error trying to find a closer launch than Junction and struggled for three hours and then suffered substantial damage to his wing, while the rest of the Pros quickly dialed out of Junction, got into a wicked cloud street and headed south towards goal at the airfield in Panguitch via two more intermediate turnpoints, one deep in terrain to the East and the other out over the flats. The pilots had to fly this last section very slowly and carefully as the day came to and end and shading from cumulus slowed things way down. Congrats to Bill Belcourt who took very good care of his blistered feet by doing some excellent flying and being packed up for maybe 30 minutes before the next two pilots arrived in goal (James Elliot and Jesse Williams who came in practically on top of one another). We got 12 athletes in goal, about half of those ticked it in the air, and the rest huffed it in on foot. Today, the last day of the XRedRocks will decide the winner who will take home a FAT $5000 bucks! Matt Dadam is safely in pole position to take the win, but anything can happen. Results for yesterdays Pro class are here. Overall results are here.
