"THE CONTEST"

[Hammer]

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the start of “The Contest”! I hope all of you are planning on being out there for a great time and some good flying. The weather looks good so come on out and enjoy!

[Aaron]

I’ll tell you whats crackin’! It’s THE CONTEST! Tomorrow morning, wake up early, get some coffee, drive ten minutes to Gibraltar Road (Gibraltar Road is only ten minutes from just about anywhere in SB, so you don’t have to wake up until 6:20) and enter THE CONTEST. You don’t have to catch a plane to Mexico or drive to Oregon to enter a world class, five event contest. How many other times in your flying lifetime can you say you did a speed glide run, open distance, timed xc, endurance and spot landing events all in a weekend? Absolutely amazing! Come hang out with your friends, make new ones or just talk crap to your old ones. Its gonna be off the richter!!! (that’s rickter nickter my nizzle, for all you snoop dogg fans)! Come support your flying community and have some fun! Definitely launch first tomorrow morning in the speed glide run so you can watch all of your friends pound in at 8 in the morning. I cant think of a better way to start my weekend then to watch my friends get a face full of wet dewey grass after flying 60+mph down the side of the mountain. SWEEETTTTT! And what??CASH PRIZES! DAMN! You can get some new bling bling for your honey with that fist full of cash after you smoke all your compadres! Fun! Fun! Fun! So go to your momma’s house tonight, snag that $25 out of her secret stash in the panty drawer, and show up tomorrow morning at 6:30, sign up and get your killer new THE CONTEST T-shirt. YES, this contest is for you! Hang glider, Para glider, Wingsuit, Parachute, Rocket launcher, whatever you need to get your fly on! Not to mention all the after flying, hangin and drinkin beer with your homies, talkin about how you smoked all the top dawgs! Oh man, its on, can you feel the love, can you feel it?! Uhhhhhhhhh! DON’T SING IT, BRING IT! (translation for the rest of you, no excuses ya bastards, see you there!)

aaron

[Bobbie]

That's right - we now have a prize for each winner in each task of the contest for both Advanced and Intermediate categories!!

So if you weren't going to enter because you didn't think you'd have a chance to win the whole enchilada - THINK AGAIN! You can now win in just one task category IN ADDITION to bein' a contender for the CASH PRIZES.

Everyone has a chance in THE CONTEST. Even I won 3rd place in 2003!!

Get up, get your gear, get yourself to launch.

Bobbie

[DBLD]

Just got the word from the "Meethead" that the pilots meeting and sign-up will begin at 8:00 A.M. at launch (Eliminator/Skyport) on Saturday. All pilot meetings will be at launch.

DD (Safety Director?)

[JimmyZ]

I'll see if I can get in touch with the SF crew coming down and the Sylmar crew coming up and let them know about meeting at launch. I hope someone can be down at Upper Parma in case they don't get the message. Look for the caravan of fun, new, flying friends!

Wish I could be there everyone! Have fun!!

James Z

[Bobbie]

If you are participating in The Contest – please email your flight information to me, unless I collected it from you in the Parma LZ today.

For today’s (Saturday) scoring send me your total flight time today (or at least what time you landed) and your flight route (e.g., Launch, VOR, Romero, The Peak, Parma.) If you landed within 100 feet of The Spot in upper or lower Parma, send your distance as well.

Questions? See me on launch.

Thanks – and remember – there are prizes for the winner in each event, as well as a cash prize for the overall winners in both Advanced and Intermediate classes.

Bobbie

Bobbie Bratz
3044 Marilyn Way
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
phone: 569.0219
cell: 455.6403

[DBLD]

What a fun day. there were pilots from as far away as Oregon flying today. There was a crew from the S.F. Bay area and a crew from the L.A. area. All here to enjoy our great flying and to participate in "The Contest". There were numerous flights over three hours today in the endurance part of "The Contest" and I even got in over two hours being almost the last one to launch.

Tomorrow we will try once again to work in the ever popular speed-glide segment of the competition, weather permitting. This morning it was blowing down till 10:00 and when it did switch it was too late and too active to to have a safe speed glide run. Be on launch at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow (Sunday) and kick rocks with us again. If it happens you DON'T want to miss it.

DD safety dude

[Parma Chris]

OK, please do tell...................

are the results in?

[Bobbie]

Thanks to everyone who participated in The Contest. Here are the stats:
19 participants, 3 events scored
$140 purse for Advanced category, 1st Place=$70, 2nd=$42, 3rd=$28
$40 purse for Intermediate category, 1st Place=$25, 2nd=$15, 3rd=$10
Raised $453 for SBSA General Fund

Overall Winners (1,2,3):
Advanced: John Greynald, Lee Kahn, David Haight
Intermediate: Tony de Groot, Joe Jackson, Anne-Odile Thomas

Individual Event Winners (free camping at Big Sur with SBSA March 30 & 31):

Speed Gliding Advanced: David Haight
Speed Gliding Intermediate: Joe Jackson

Endurance Advanced: John Greynald
Endurance Intermediate: Anne-Odile Thomas

Spot Landing Advanced: Irene Revenko
Spot Landing Intermediate: Tony de Groot

Thanks to Parma Chris for putting out the "spots" in upper and lower Parma, and for providing LZ wind reports throughout the weekend. Thanks to Hammer for being the "meet head" and DD for being safety director.

[Skippy]

And a huge thank you to Bobbie for hanging with us throughout the weekend, and being such a great sport! Janet also joined us a couple days and helped out with the time-keeping of the tasks. We couldn't have done it without you both... THANK YOU for donating your time. I think you should both get free camping at Big Sur too...

On a side note, Tony also entered the Rincon Classic this past weekend, and won the Masters division (see the results in today's SBNewspress sport roundup section). His division was stacked with great surfers (some of them ex-pros), so that's a great achievement! I was able to rush over to Rincon after my flight on Sunday to see his final heat and he kicked some serious b***. It was great to watch.

Congrats to Tony for winning 2 Contests in one weekend... Way to go...

Skippy

[DBLD]

I want to first thank everyone for making THE CONTEST possible; Bob Anderson for pushing the idea of having EJ’s contest this year; Robert Millington for stepping up to the plate to be the Meet Director; Bobbie for keeping times and holding the purse; Janet for getting up early to go to launch ready with a stopwatch only to find out that it wasn’t any good for speed gliding; Kathy and Kathleen for providing tireless logistical support; Parma Chris for setting up not just one, but two spot landing targets; and to all the contestants that made it happen.

Saturday we had a fairly strong east component early that kept most people from doing the speed gliding, but there were a couple of brave souls. Since it was east we decided that x-country might not be a good idea (littering the area around the airport with gliders). Endurance and spot landing were called. It turned out to be a good day for that with many flights over three hours and I didn’t see any damaged gliders around the spot landing cone.

Sunday was even stronger east early, but it clocked around and mellowed out. It mellowed out so much that the modest timed x-c task of Montecito Pk. to Cathedral wasn’t doable by even our best pilots. By the end of the day conditions were so light and I was still on launch (Safety Director goes last) so I decided to make a speed glide run. It was good enough to take 1st in the event. I don’t think Scotty is going to let that happen next year.

We had to work around the weather on Monday….. All right the truth is that Monday was a bust. We kicked rocks into the clouds on launch till 2:00 in the afternoon when Hammer officially called the meet over. I got in the car to go home and got as far as Flores Flats when I realized we were literally 25’ above cloud base at launch with the sun line moving in fast. I buzzed back up to find the remaining pilots setting back up and we had a nice fly about and out to the beach.

Thanks again to all who volunteered and participated. We’ll do it again next year.

DD