USA Race2, Fidler strikes again!
left to right, Fernando Silva, 3rd yesterday, Sean Fidler 1st and Jim Frantz 2nd.
Reports based on Richard Owen facebook report, one of the pilot of this USA SGP.
It seems unusal weather is going away and cold air mass will let its place to a more warm air during the next day, so perhaps a pivotal moment for the average speed recorded up to now in this USA Sailplane Grand Prix? WIth my european eyes, cold air mass sounds good and produces nice cumulus clouds. Seems a tad different in Florida based on what Rich explains in his Facebook post! A different World!
It seems also we lost one of the competitors after a “low pass” above the handlebars of his electric bike… We wish him good recovery.
As usual, after 2 days, the tiny details about organisation and pilots humour and habits are settling down. Everybody feels more comfortable and it is time to use the root of any pedagogical philosophy : repeat! So it is time to repeat what are the sporting rules, how to manage max wingloading, how to put your glider on the grid properly.
Let’s talk about the race. According to the “sniffer” (the non competitor pilot sent in the air to check if it is time to start launching procedure) it was first “not suitable”. It is never easy to understand a sniffer. Some are very arithmetic throwing you numbers on radio. Others are more metaphysical and you need a proper google translate to figure out what they mean. But still, “not suitable” is pretty easy to understand but does not raise smiles on pilot’s faces. Anyway, second radio information became more optimistic and soon after the first competitors were in the air, but not before Competition Director John Godfrey swapped the race to a shorter TASK B, chasing the sun towards the South for the whole journey.
According to Rich, going too close to the big lakes on the East part of the first leg was not wise. I don’t know many places where big lakes mean being wise but anyway, it does exist sometimes and somewhere on our little planet good lifts close to water mass, but ground soil has to be very proactive to do so, and wind flow needs also to be “cooperative”. In any case it seems it was not the right thing to do yesterday in Florida, with some low flights, meaning losing precious time. So, the tactic starting right from the start line the most West possible was perhaps the right answer. Good call, Sean Fidler and Jim Frantz! Job was done? Yes and no, for sure these two were on a good lead and able to keep it, making the “racing rabbits” for the chasing group.
The race in the race was the one among the chasing group, unable to take any advantage from each others, with only few minutes separating the pilots winning some points. And a hand of a seconds for the poor guys gathering no points at all! As a reminder, only place 1 to 8 get points with winner 10pts, 2nd 8pts and then 7pts and so on. Being distances only few seconds sometimes mean a lot of difference in points. This is SGP spirit, and combined to regatta start, we definitely love it.
Congrats again Mr Fidler, 2 days, 2 wins! Solid. We can already spot a fierce competition on the overall score, perhaps not for the win but to reach the 2nd place meaning very likely a ticket for the Final. I checked my level of pop corn, need a refill, definitely. Go go go Fernando, Gintas, Erik, Nelson and Sergei! Looking forward to meet you during next Final in Saint-Auban!
Follow SGP USA here, with official results there.
Next live tracking will be there, expect start of the race around 7:30pm Paris Time (6:30pm UTC)
Benjamin Néglais, SGP Core Team
