Thirteen pilots and three teams took part in this year’s Club Cross-Country Contest, and they made 32 flights on 8 days. This was a big jump in the numbers from 2005 when we had 9 pilots make 26 flights. Looks like all these new ship owners are exercising themselves and getting out on course! Awards will be handed out at the CISS Annual Banquet in January.
Top honors went to Ron Clarke, perennial winner and cross-country racer extraordinaire, who made six flights and came out on top on all but one of them. Tom Ruble surprised everyone and mostly himself to prevent Ron from his perfect record. The race for second place was won by a talented Chris Carpenter who flew his 40 year old Ka6 on four flights to within 9% of the leader: look for more out of him next year as he pushes his wood and fabric glider further up the score sheet. The top three places were rounded out by Mike Nichols who also flew on four days. His seasoned Libelle, a first generation fiberglass ship from the mid-1970s, is still a very competitive glider and Mike is getting more and more out of it each season.
New this year is the Team Category, in which more than one person can “team-fly” the same glider. The winning team of “AW” consisted of Darren Bedwell and Dave Newill, who flew their venerable ASW 15 into first place. Not far behind was team 8UP, Kurt Ristow and Don Taylor, flying their Discus B. Third place honors went to Team IZ, Gerry Simpson and Mario Lazaga, who did a great job flying their LS 4.
Brief summary of the rules: A “Contest Day” is any day on which at least 3 pilots fly a minimum task of 30 or 50 miles and are on task for at least one hour. Any airport may be used as a turnpoint. Scoring is based on speed with a bonus given for distance flown greater than the minimum (30 or 50) miles. All flights must be verifiable using a gps trace submitted by the pilot to the scorer. A pilot may make as many flights as he wants, but the cumulative score is based on the best 4 flights. All gliders are assigned a handicap factor based upon the SSA Sports Class handicap system. Pilots who have not achieved the Gold Badge distance leg (Kestrel class) are required to fly a minimum distance of 30 miles, all others (Red Tail class) 50 miles.
The results are here.
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