Rat Race Task 3

30Km – Woodlz-Woodln-Burnt-Flyari-Cemeta-Donato

Getting better by the day! At last I am off the bottom of the ladder in points, not by much though, but CJ Sturtevant and I now seem to have a personal battle going on to see who will beat each other. Ah, the battle of the old folks is on! I think she got news early in the week that my personal goal was to beat her this year after she beat me last year. Some folks back at Tiger gave me a bit of a ribbing for that, shame on them!. So now each day after race she enquires as to how well I did. Bring it on CJ! :-)

Today I decided to launch after the race had started! Yes, after. The last 2 days folks have been flying low over launch and a flush occurring just before the start. Not the recommended tactic for sure  but after speaking with a few other pilots the day before about that we thought it could be a good option. Turns out only Roger Marsh and I decided to stick to our guns and try it. Roger launched just before start and I saw him sink out. Oh no not again I thought. I waited a little bit longer and launched at 1:35, 5 minutes after the start. Looking above at the gaggle I saw them get higher and all start to move out. Oops. Looks like I may have mistimed this.

It was quite funny and a little spooky being the last one off the hill. No crowds watching you, only LeAnn, and a few of the RatRace staff to see you off. Winds were light and it was a running reverse to get off but all  went well.

As I got into my harness I looked up to see the whole field heading out to the first waypoint which was just the LZ, and some of the leaders were coming back already. Gee Whizz maybe this wasn't the best idea… thoughts of “Yer No thinkin wae yir dipstick Jimmy” came to mind. However, all was about to change.

I got a good thermal just below launch and being a right hand day I was forced to turn to my inefficient right even though I was the only one around. It was completely stress free having no one else around as I climbed in the thermal. Yeah baby..I’m a likin it! I got up to around 5200 and headed off to the start cylinder. The Dodgifly vario has been working well this week and I may have to revert to calling it Digifly again. There was a 800m cylinder around the start waypoint but my Dodgifly seemed to let me get to within 200m before it registered to go to the next waypoint. Maybe I programmed it wrong, anyway I was off!

Got back to launch and head off to Burnt pretty high. Now I could see I was above quite a few folks who were struggling to make ground. John Mann was below me scratching in the gully below Burnt ridge. Turns out poor John’s speed system broke just after launch and he had to fly the task with no speed bar. Kudos to him for how far he got (turns out it was the same as me!)

I got up high on burnt and headed across to Rabies to see the lead gaggle of 5 flying slightly below me. Easy to spot Bill Hughes, Bill Belcourt and Brian Webb’s wings. They were about 5Km ahead of me I guessed as I had about 2.5 Km to Flyair. Most of the gaggle were now also coming back from FlyAir as I headed out and getting up above Rabies.

The wind direction was really weird as I was in the convergence zone. Every direction seemed to be a headwind. As I got over Rabies I should have stopped and tanked up a little more but I thought I could do that on the way back as I would have a tailwind behind me, After tagging Flyair I head back to Rabies ridge. Another headwind. What the frick I said. What’s going on.  A glider to the left of me started sinking like a stone so I moved a little off the ridge and kept going. Now I stared sinking too..850ft/min. Oh crap Got to Rabies ridge but didn’t want to be in the lee here for sure. Looking at the LZ there was a definite valley wind in the valley coming from behind me. I decided to cross to the slope above the LZ and see if I could soar up to mid launch and get a thermal from there. Unfortunately there was too much sink getting across and I landed once again back in the Lz.

However, there were quite a few others in the Lz who got skunked by the winds around Rabies and the convergence zone. I was pretty pumped though as I flew better than the last 2 days and I covered the distance in just 45 minutes from launch. Later I found out Roger Marsh got to goal, one of only 9 pilots, so the tactic we had of launching late was pretty sound I think as Rich Hass told me later he had 2 near mid airs and after taking evasive action had to deal with a cravat. Very stressful up there it seemed.

So what about CJ. Well she also got to FlyAir but had gone onto Burnt and was too tired d to continue so came back to land at the LZ. Thank goodness I have age on my side! Ok CJ..today your butt is mine!

Arun flew well again today as did Mer and Chris but they all missed goal by just a little as lift out near Cemeta wasn’t that good.

Today’s weather is forecast to be much better with ceilings of around 8500-9000k so I expect a linger task to be set. Its also a left hand turn day at the start so I am looking forward  to the challenge today.

All scores can be found at http://flyxc.org/2009_Rat_Race.html