Today was another good soaring day at Dansville, and I’m happy to say that I had a MUCH better day today than yesterday – not that doing better than yesterday was all that hard. I think the doctors have now decided to remove me from the suicide watch, and I now have my belt and shoelaces back – yay!
Weather today was just about a carbon copy of yesterday, with a mix of streets, OD, and blue/scraggly clouds. There was a whole lot of gear-shifting going on, and staying high was still the order of the day. Peter Scarpelli (CA) fell in a bit of a hole and dropped to 5th for the day (after winning the first two) and now is only 1 point ahead of John Seymour (SM, 3rd for the day) and only 33 points ahead of Sean Murphy (XC, 4th for the day) in the overall standings. New kid Andy Brayer (flying a borrowed V2bx) took 2nd for the day, and old kid Tim Welles (W3) won the day.
My day ended with another ‘interesting’ final glide over the high ground west of the field. I was ‘pretty sure’ I was going to make it OK, and I could see one edge of the town of Dansville peeking over the ridgeline, and my ClearNav amoeba assured me things were going OK, but my flatland brain was just having real trouble dealing with having to fly around 300′ agl towers while still 5-6 miles from the finish circle. I kept looking down at the fields going by WAY too close under my wings and thinking that I should already have the gear down and the spoilers out! Dansville is a nice town, and the soaring center (and the staff) is first-rate, but competition final glides here are NOT for the faint of heart! ;-).
We had another great dinner tonight – Philly Cheesesteaks (with or without cheese, even), corn-on-the-cob, and beer – what else could a guy want? By the time dinner was served, the sun was setting in the west, illuminating a few huge buildups way to the east – God’s way of telling us that there were still plenty of soaring adventures left in this contest.
Tomorrow’s popular weather is calling for ‘Sunny, with a high of 86’ – again! Maybe after this contest I can get the ‘weather jinx’ label removed from my forehead ;-).
Frank (standing in for Janine)
