Rat Race Day 2

Rob Sporrer (aka SA)

The Rat Race Day 2 Win
Wednesday, 6/1/05

I got off launch early and had a nice slow climb. I topped off the thermal with a couple other pilots and pushed out front. I wanted to get to Burnt Ridge in order to have a quartering wind while hitting the days 3.5 exit start cylinder at rabies peak. I arrived alone at Burnt and immediately hit a big one which took me to 6800 feet. I had another 30 minutes to kill before the start. It was sunny over at rabies and I considered heading that way but chose to hang on at Burnt which always seems to pulse. I got really low then finally made a few turns in a little bubble. I noticed lots of pilots heading my way as I started to climb. Nick Greece, Josh Cohn, Kari Castle, Will Gadd, and a few others arrived and we helped each other mark a nice one and we climbed well. The start was only minutes away as we topped out, and Tom McCune led out ahead of me with better altitude at the start.

We hit the Woodrat Peak turnpoint and headed back for the Burnt turnpoint. Tom took his own line under a cloud street to the north east. Kari, Nick and I worked some weak stuff in the valley over the LZ. There was quite a bit of drift and it wasn’t really worth the climb. Nick Greece made a bold move back to Burnt and I followed. Luckily he marked a big one and we climbed to base. I was pretty high the rest of the way and was on my own. I got low on the way to Jackson trunpoint and had to head back and tank up on some altitude before making another run. I came back from Jackson and found Jeff Huey marking a nice one. We climbed nicely and I got high again. I topped out and then hit the cemetery turnpoint which was the final turnpoint before goal. I saw Tom McCune ahead of me by about 400 meters but he was 1800 below me and needed more altitude before gliding to goal. I barely had goal according to my Flytec 5030. I got on the speed bar and was about 500 meters ahead of him. We both started to thermal and after a few hundred feet I noticed he was behind me but climbing much better in some stronger lift. The Flytec 5030 said I would arrive at goal with 430 feet of altitude so I turned and took it to goal arriving with 400 feet.

This was my first win on a task at a US comp. I have the thank UP paragliders for making an unbelievable wing. The Targa 2 was solid all day, and gave me the speed I needed to win the day. Congradulations to all the other UP team pilots. Team UP currenlty hold 6 out of the 10 top ten positions overall. We are hoping for another great day today.”