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Sun Aug 6 Pre Contest – World Cup “. Opening Ceremony of the 21st World Championship F3B

Sunday’s weather was forecast to be much cooler with a high of 66. Dawn brought overcast skies with dark clouds hanging over the mountains.

I was first up this morning launching in a cross and entering the distance course on the downwind side. I managed 18 laps and landed a long way out in a field of hay that was cut just two days ago. Winning score for my round was 25 laps flown on the upwind side of the course.

Tom flew next and delayed his launch to enter the course in the best air being marked by the other pilots. Tom flew very smoothly to take the first Granny for our team in the contest wiuth a 25 lap haul.

Last to fly distance in Rd2 was Mike and he launched a little earlier than the Japanese team who with their late entry on course managed to find a better corridor to beat us by 2 laps in the end.

Duration Rd 2 was next on the menu.

Reto was up first in tough air and managed to find nothing going upwind and ended up relaunching around 5 minutes. Wasnt easy air and Andreas Herrig landed out as well.

I was up second and worked marginal air for the first 4 minutes before retreating to the treeline for a couple of minutes surfing. I finally ran out of height at 7 minutes in and came back a long way down the field to Spot 1 for a 95 landing.

Mike made great air look easy and took a 10:00- 100 as did Tom when he launched specking out with the group crosswind down the runway. The conditions have been quite variable.

Rd3 of duration was flown next. All our pilots got their time in easier conditions and a couple more thousands were scored by Tom and Mike. We are going to finish the contest with  round 3 of speed.

It was flown in reverse order of position in contest. With my 53rd spot I was the first USPilot up 11th and Reto 30, mike 40 and Tom who is in 13th place went last of us number 52.

I completed the Precontest with another 19.2 for a trio of 19’s. Not fast but at least consistent and it was a helluva lot of fun. I thank the Team pilots very much for helping me fly in th8s pre contest.

Reto flew an absolute pearler with tight turns to make a 14.99. Mike’s run was clean for a 16.62 and Tom’s was just magnificent at 14.70 to be the fastest run of the day. He kept that distinction until Joacham Stahl flew a mid 14  and a reflight awarded to Stefan Bessemer saw the final run the fastest at 13.50.

Even so two of our pilots were top 5 in last rod of Speed and that is exciting amongst this crowd.

It was great to watch Joe Wurts flying F3B and helping the Netherlands team. He was a bit rusty at this discipline but showed some of the old flashes of brilliance at times. 

With the very good speed runs by Tom, Reto  and Mike the final Team positions saw Team USA in third place with Martin Herrigs Team in 1st and Martin Webershocks team in 2nd.

Tom finished in the top 10 in 9th place. This was a terrific result for us as Tom did have one problematic speed run where he cut twice in the same run. He recovered magnificently to have 3rd fastest time in Rd3 speed so if Tom can stay clean and tight in the WC he will be a real contender. The performance also of Mike and Reto was solid and they have learned a lot in these 1st 4 days here. They are all in great spirits and looking forward to doing battle representing USA.