US Soaring Team 2010: Szeged

I was opening the webpage up when Ant mentioned a wonderful thing while brushing his teeth. I must mention that Tom Kelley and I have both rented Caravan's and are staying on the airport. It really gets you into the heart of racing at a WGC, think Gypse villiage, there are over 100 caravans and tents out here, all packed together by country. There are kids running around, pools set up. BBQ's going every night. Ant pointed out (I seemed to have missed), females walking around nearly nude....anyway....They brought in portable showers and bathrooms to cover everyone's needs. The other morning however we saw someone refilling to rinse their sewer tank..One sink off-limits... Then Ant was just mentioning he was brushing his teeth while the next guy came in lifted his feet into the sink to wash them, meanwhile Ant is still brushing. Sorry I had to share that news with you...We are now down to 3 sinks.

As for the day. It is amazing because you think the previous day was hard...it just keeps getting worse. Not only did the first turn suck really bad, with a descending cloud-base between the start and turn area. I missed the turn area, it was flippin 30km, the computer said "turn here" so I did, because there was no reason to spend anymore time in their than I needed. Next time I will count a few more. It looks like I am 47 meters out, which will land me a 50point penalty, with a little luck still holding onto my top 10 spot. I was 15 for the day. So we started and I deviated to try and get around the lower cloudbase....there was no getting around. So I finally glided in and limped back dropping water and taking 0.5knt thermals to keep from finding the farmers daughters....or using more fuel...which I have finished off 2 20L barrels, I think I have burned more 100ll in the past week than diesel (mini-hearse).

So I took a near 80degree deviation to try and get back to the higher cloudbase where WE was reporting 4.0 knts (the decimal place is correct again), finally a few thermals later I had reconnected with the stronger lift and it felt like racing again. SS stayed closer to course-line, my way was a little faster. Eventually we got to see each other again. Then since we were so overtime, I just turned around after getting into the next turn. However the winners offset their really sucky first turn by going deep into the second turn. I was too low entering the second turn to attempt it. The final glide was by far the best part of the whole day...great lift, clouds streeting in the correct direction....

Off to bed, then stick Dennis on the scoring office :)