HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 11 November | December 2018 saw Zac disappearing. After this, I just literally had to hang on. Zac was in goal but had taken the clock before me. I saw other gliders, but they were all Sport class. This meant good points and first for the day. Stoked! A few guys come in after us, including Davis, putting him into second place overall. He’d be happy with this I was sure. I lead by 480 points – it looked like this comp was mine to loose now. Fourth day. We turned up for the tasksetting, set the tasks, but unfortunately we were in the storm sector of the weather system. No luck today. Day cancelled. Same story for the last two days. Not really the outcome most of us would have predicted, but if put in perspective, we had three proper, long enough, fair tasks – something we always want in a competition. In other parts of the world people don’t fly this much in a full week of comp flying. We moved the prizegiving up a little so people could leave earlier. I was very proud to wear my golden bird Moyes T-shirt for first place. Davis was very emotional in second place. Third place went to Rudy. He was very happy, and we were all happy for them. It was very tight between second and fifth place, just a few points separations. We had three Litespeeds in the top 10, which was great, especially since this is not our home turf. In the Sport class we had Matt Pruett in first, Zach Hazen second and Pete Wall third. Zach flew our Gecko 170 and made us proud! The Geckos are much loved in the US and rightly so. They have everything a recreational or aspiring up-and-coming pilot wants. What’s not to like? I won’t write more about Sport class, because everyone can see that they are all over social media – I guess we’re too busy flying in the Open class… It was good to see so many young faces in this class, after all, they are the future of our sport. The Swifts had a good time, Chris Zimmerman first, Greg Chastain second, Brian Porter third. For my part, I cannot complain about Big Spring, four out of four as far as winning goes: ➲➲ 1st Pre-worlds (2006), ➲➲ 1st Worlds (2007), ➲➲ 2 x US National rounds (2013 & 2018). Thank you very much Big Spring, I take it! The way home was a little delayed because the weather which didn’t let us fly on the last three days persisted, so I had to stay another day. I’m happy to be home now and after all, I still ended up going somewhere for a comp. Thank you, Moyes Gliders for the great gear again, and thank you Vix for giving me the opportunity to go to Texas. Goal! Rudy Grotes runs over to congratulate Attila Below: Sport class top 10 pose proudly for a picture during the awards ceremony: 1st Matt Pruett, 2nd Zach Hazen and 3rd Pete Wall All photos: Audray Luck The Open class winners of the 2018 Big Spring Competition: Attila Bertok 1st, Davis Straub 2nd and Rudy Grotes 3rd Kelsey assists her father, Ric Caylor, on the launch line Nov mber | Dec mber 2018