Canadian Nationals Golden July 28

We suspected the day would OD like yesterday but earlier, so we opted for a quick-n-dirty task, similar to the Day 1 fishbowl task we set at the 2007 Nationals (for those who remember that task).  In a nutshell, from the gravel pit to Pagliaro, with points in between, and ending in the Nicholson LZ.  In addition to keeping everyone local (good for retrieve), and keeping everyone safe (can see everyone and not be sending people downrange where we can't see the weather), it's also good for spectators since they can watch the entire race unfold in front of them.

Initially it wasn't that great in the air, pretty scratchy, and I had a sucky start.  I didn't get very high for the gravel pit TP and arrived back at the mountain low, and had to scratch on the Tits (or the Ass Cheeks, depending on who you ask) for a long time.  For those familiar with the Tits, it's a great place to hang out, but hard to get away from.  You can spend hours down there and not get away.

But I was able to get away from there eventually, and scratched my way to Willi's knob where I was able to get high (thank God!), and get the Pagliaro TP.  At this point the skies were getting big, and it was getting easier to get high and stay high.  On the way back to the gravel pit started to get hailed on by the cloud above me, but it wasn't growing that big so I put some bar on and drove to the other side.

Xavier was in the same general vicinity and got on the radio to report "Level 3".  So Bruce stopped the task.  Aggh...I had just reached cloudbase and had the rest of the course on glide; just needed to be quicker to get around the course before it was stopped!

Actually nobody had finished the course yet; the farthest-along pilot ended up with 730 points or so.  Pretty much everyone landed at Nicholson LZ after the task was stopped so very little retrieve needed doing.

Low save of the day goes to Randy Parkin, who launched almost last, immediately sunk out of sight, and after an hour of not being visible, popped above launch and gave a salute to the cheers of the crowd watching from the HG ramp.

In the end the skies stayed fine, and some people went up to fly later.  But better to be safe than sorry, and we have lots of flying left.  Golden is not a place to play with cu-nims!

The organization has now posted the results on the WCSC website; you can see the results here and scroll to page 2.