Sorry to be so tardy in my reporting, we had a long day yesterday and I was simply tired… It is now almost 8 o’clock AM here, the sun is peeping over the hills over yonder and we’re almost ready to go up to launch for the last task of this 2009 Worlds event.
Yesterday the task setters sent us out on a 117 km ordeal in all but blue conditions, and with a goal at a record 2900m ASL. We had a 5km entry cylinder around B31, some 12km south of launch. Almost everybody waited at Crazy, to glide out some 5-6 minutes before the start gate, and I for one depended on my XC Trainer to tell me when to go. Said instrument has a function where it counts down to the start time, and shows how fast one must glide to be there on time, and I left from max. altitude when it said 46km/h, and to my joy the speed counter kept creeping up so that at one point it said 120 km/h, indicating that I would be some comfortable seconds late for the start – only then all of a sudden it said 24 km/h, and I had to turn parallel to the start cylinder for maybe 30 seconds, losing valuable altitude all the way! Never trust electronics…
We had to take the B31 after the start gate, and then it was back to B01 Three Kings, before heading north to B23 Saucos. As the day was blue it seemed pilots were rather reluctant to push out (as opposed to yesterday when some pilots were going like bats out of hell), and the gaggle kept reforming again in spite of slightly different route choices here and there. From Saucos it was back south to that old acquaintance of ours, the B30 Aguila, and the Crazy mesa offered the logical route choice, with a buoyant and bouncy glide until the end, when the sink out towards the turnpoint got evil. A few of us arrived below the turnpoint, but there was a reliable thermal there marked by the resident Black Vultures, and although some, myself included, had been delayed a bit by the low save, the gaggle was soon reformed. Back towards the southern tip of the Crazy mesa and a good climb, and another bouncy glide over to the high terrain N of launch. There was a fire going up on the plateau just south of Escaleria, and this gave us the last good climb back to 3700 or thereabouts. I must admit I had my doubts about the 2900 m goal by then, the day seemed to be shutting down, but we got a very floaty tailwind glide to a good if somewhat mellow thermal some 10k’s from goal. From there it was all about who was into gambling (a few outlandings in his bag already) or into safing, and Micky and Farmer went for it like hounds after bait. In the end Micky beat Farmer in by a measly 1 second, with the lead gaggle all following within the next two minutes, and once we had the 4 km end of speed section in the bag we could leisurely climb to a safe altitude before gliding into one of the most scenic goal fields I have ever seen, complete with sheep flocks, mounted cowboys, conifers all around, and little dusties being formed every time a pilot touched down. The half moon was clearly visible over the volcano (Nevado de Toluca) and it was all just perfect – that is, until you realised that, this being Mexico, they had dragged that Hummer with the sound system up there and were pumping loud music out into the suspended Garden of Eden. Ah well.
I noticed that Andi was a little late into goal, but I am sure his lead is such that this was purely a sensible precaution on his side. The way I see it he only needs to make goal again today to be a very worthy world Champion, and it pleases me to see.
From a UP perspective I was happy to see Torsten make it in with the lead gaggle as well, I think that he has a very honourable position in this comp on his hands too, provided he makes goal today. More about that later, now it is time to hit the (dirt) road and eat some dust,
Cheers from Valle de Bravo, second to last on-site report,
Mads
