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2000 Valentine's Money Meet

Tidbits (Timbits + Tedbits)

Skydive Arizona is better than ever!

Greetings Cyber Surfers, it's almost competition time once again here in the great sunny state of Arizona, and we've got the whole works coming at you as usual.

The DZ is set up similar to the 1998 Nationals, with a "fish bowl" for the judges in the east side of the hanger and the west side blocked off for the DZTV viewing area. They have two Otters equipped with "cabin cams" and air-to-ground transmitters for live shots inside the aircraft on jump run. Spectators will be in for quite a treat this weekend. Competition begins Saturday morning!

Sean Capogreco waits to shoot
GK Headquarters.

Saturday 0900
Competition has begun under some high clouds and cool temperatures, and guess what? After one round, neither Airspeed team is in first place. Airspeed Zulu suffered a bad jump with a bust, and the Knights and DeLand PD Blue (formerly Genesis) both had good jumps.

1000
Curious about the yucky scores in round 2? The high clouds pushed the working time down to 20 seconds. I hope it comes up for round 3, because that one is all randoms. The Knights are the team to beat right now, and PD Blue is right behind them...

My girls are about to
bring me some of  mom's 
fried chicken!

...whew, Airspeed Vertical did a 30 on round 3, and the Knights followed them up with a 31. Good stuff! They did it with 35 seconds working time, so I guess the clouds lifted. Over in the Advanced division, there's a 3-way tie after two rounds. Methinks round 3 will open that up some.

1200
That GK 31 was a mistake - it's now posted as a 30, and PD Blue ripped a 33 on their jump to take a 3 point lead after three rounds in 4-way Open. 

Perris High Pressure has taken the Advanced division lead after three rounds. Hey, weren't they Elsinore High Pressure the last few years?

Time out, mom's famous fried chicken just arrived! I'll be back soon...

...yum that was good...this meet is motoring right along, well into round 4 now. Dan BC is jumping in Chris Irwin's slot for Airspeed Zulu, word is Chris has a bum shoulder. How about that PD Blue! Those guys are beating up on the big boys today, a 4 point lead with two jumps to go. Granted, most of the other teams are in rebuild mode, but it sure will make for an interesting nationals this fall.

1400
With one round left to go in Advanced, we have a real battle going between Perris High Pressure and San Marcus Fast4ward, the former with a one-point advantage; rounding out third is Inertia. There are only two teams competing in the Novice class, which is using a simplified dive pool and format. I'm not sure why they aren't running this meet with the same classes as the nationals...

...Airspeed Vertical smoked round five to pull within two of PD Blue. They've made up four points the last two rounds, so with one jump to go this one's suddenly a lot more interesting.

Bekie after round 5...

...lots of snow birds watching the fun...

Hey somebody let me know whether the webcam is working, I'm getting strange results when I check it from here - webmaestro@omniskore.com 

G2 at the A2G station.

1545
Round 6 of Open...Airspeed Vertical did a 26 when I wasn't looking, so now the pressure is on PD Blue to put up a 25 or better to win. Now taking bets...oops, can't do that sorry...ouch, GK matched their 26 but busted it down to a 22, that hurt...and now Blue is up, a slow start, a glitch, I don't think they got it...it's a 23 busted to a 21, and Airspeed Vertical is victorious! And in the Advanced class, barring a huge performance by the three teams that haven't finished, Elsinore oops Perris High Pressure will win over San Marcos Fast4ward and Inertia. 

With all 4-way complete except for three Advanced teams, we're on a wind hold. 

1800
It's a wrap for the day, 4-way (five jumps) will finish up first thing tomorrow, immediately followed by 8-way. The beer light is on -- Amber Bock on tap -- and Aerial Focus will be playing their new video on the big screen right after the 8-way briefing. See y'all tomorrow!

Sunday Morning
The world is morning the loss of Peanuts creator Charles Schultz today, the final day of his comic strip. But Charlie Brown lives on in another form as team leader of the Golden Knights 8-way, and his band of NCOs will take to the skies shortly to kick off the 8-way event.

A little bar buzz from last night -- PD Blue apparently felt like they choked on the final round of 4-way, but after seeing Airspeed Vertical's round six a couple of times, it wouldn't have mattered. Vertical positively smoked that jump. Their booties were on fire. 26 points on a jump with stardian > stardian is amazing. PD Blue will hopefully continue to train hard and give these guys a run for the money at Perris this fall.

The "north" judging panel. All of the original "California Bitches" are at this meet. 

8-Way has begun...the Knights had a very rough start and are lucky to get a 16, the judges popped them once, could have easily been three or four busts...waiting for Airspeed's dub...

Yesterday was the worst weather we've had here in many months, and we still got off all but three jumps of 4-way. Wow.

...speaking of wow, Airspeed 8 has jumped out of the gates with a spicy 21 to take a big early lead on their rivals. Wonder if that lead will hold up!

1000
The Knights round 2 was even uglier than their round 1; a 14 double-busted and J'd down to a 9. Ouch! They never built the stairstep out the door and had trouble with all their caterpillars. Airspeed's effort was a model of "smooth and deliberate" and their 14 is totally clean. Is that board right? Airspeed 8 has a 10-point lead over the Knights after only two rounds! Well of course, they are the defending world champions...

The MIBs did much better on round 3, but Airspeed matched their 17 to stay well in front half way through the jumps. Hard to believe those guys haven't been training 8-way, they look really sharp!

1300
Omigod, Barbara brought the most WONDERFUL enchiladas for lunch. While I was chowing down, the Knights managed a bust-free 16 on round 4 to finally gain a little ground on Airspeed, though it's probably too little too late. Airspeed did a 15 on that one.

"Hey mommy, I wanna jump!"

8-Way Intermediate is doing a different draw than the open at this meet, so only the open teams are counting in the America's Cup standings. "Unruly," made of mostly Eloy locals, is running away from the pack in Intermediate with 21 points after 3 rounds.

1630
Okay, I'm a bad boy - I went to the trailer and took a 30 minute power nap while Jack ran the show. When I got back, AZ8 had upped their lead to 12 points with one jump left, and Tiger Woods had closed to within 1 stroke of Michelson. At least there's one close contest going on today!

The Golden Knights and Airspeed share some high-fives after the final jump.

Final round action, AZ8 has defeated the Golden Knights 105 to 96. A superb effort by Chad Smith in his first 8-way competition (I think)! Most impressive. Lunch Box Force didn't do shabby in earning third place, putting up a 7.2 average. Team Unruly is the Intermediate class winner, and everyone is going home in one piece (I think again). A terrific weekend of competition FS is over, thank you all for visiting OmniSkore!

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