I’ve had a month between the West Coast Paragliding Championships and the upcoming Chelan XC Open to reflect on my quest to improve my performance and competition results this season. I haven’t had a chance to fly (due to my work schedule and the adverse local weather/fires) so I’ve taken the opportunity to tweak my gear and work on my ‘brainage’.

I see from my site stats that many folks are coming to this blog because it's listed as a Rat Race Blog on the website - Sorry for the hip-fake, but I was unable to make the Rat Race this year. I'll be at the Chelan Open later in July instead.

Here are some links for those looking for Rat Race 2008 info:

The Scores can be found HERE http://flyxc.org/ratrace08

Portland pilots made the migration to Pine on Sunday - what a long day, 4 hours to get there and Pine is a roll of the dice, it can go any which way.

The lapse rate was good and the winds aloft fairly light, so it looked like it was going to be a good weekend.

You hear about the lead gaggle racing each other into the ground - and it's true, it happens more often than a logical person would allow themselves to repeat the mistake. When it happens, I've noticed I do much better in a task...

The mistake is thinking that you can't allow someone to beat you - what happens is you beat yourself - you beat yourself because you couldn't stand the thought of people passing you. What really matters is the total results (or do scores really matter at all?).

This site just entered my view, and I love it. The posters are classic anti-corp. and the humor is so cynical that it appeals - no end!

http://www.despair.com/store.html

I got home late last night after a 10 hour drive. The pop-up trailer was very comfortable and made the week of flying enjoyable. . . I figure that having the 20-yr-old camper saved me approximately $700 over the 9 days I was in Jacksonville. I ate well & had fresh, strong coffee each morning while laying in my bed - Life was good, even when the temps dropped to 40F at night.

Another perfect flying day has been delivered - a 67 km task went along terrain that we had seen in bits and pieces on earlier days.

Goal was at the Purcell LZ which is in a fairly narrow valley with a lot of terrain on the downwind side. The excitement began just before the second place pilot, Marty Devietti, was about to enter the goal. At 150 feet above the trees his Airwave FR3 exploded and he instantly threw his reserve.

The final day of the WCPC is over and, in my opinion, today was some of the sweetest flying of the week. Lift was abundant and convergence lines made for some extremely fast transitions. Jug & I had a fun day, trading leads (with respect to each other) and helping each other stay in the game.

The task was a 66k task with many valley crossings before the long leg down to Boaz Pk. and then Purcell.

Another really well designed 68 km task today - I am very impressed with the quality of the tasks, they have been matching the conditions and remain very challenging.

Much warmer weather for task 5, no clouds but fairly consistent climbs up to 700 ft/min.

The course went to Grants Pass then to a tricky lee-side turnpoint near Apple Gate and then goal at Donato's. The high ground was working well, but there we some tense moments when we got low and scraped out of a small clear cut right at the top of the ridge line.