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sored by the North Atlanta Soaring Association (NASA), the contest was held in Rome GA, at one of the most picturesque fields I have had the pleasure of flying. Attendance was down from prior years (around 40 in expert) but the flying and comrade more than made up for it. The wind was up the first day, as usual, but otherwise the weather cooperated. The hotel was good and the City of Rome, GA, turned out to be a place worth visiting. We had flyers from all over the South, some of who were also in attendance at the SRCC Glider contest in April.
   On the first day, in windy conditions with gusts well over 20 mph, Martin came in 5th place (and received some nice wood) after having been ranked higher earlier. Flight group scores were normalized on the first day, which kept luck somewhat out of it. If you won your group you got a 1000 even if you didn't get your time. Landing scores were accumulated outright without normalizing. I had the highest flight time of the first day, but missed all my landings and finished 11th. I think I hear a little birdie saying, "I told you so." The second day saw better flying conditions after a questionable start. This was an outright TD contest with no normalizing. Martin was ranked first after the first round and second for most of the rest of the day. Unfortunately his fifth round was a bummer and bounced him out of contention finishing 8th. I got all my times (pretty close anyway) and some points on three out of five landings and placed 5th (also got some nice wood).

with just an average launch, Russ must have nailed his. He had to have at least an extra 100 feet on me. Nobody was finding any lift for the first several minutes, just searching in the same general area. I knew I had to do something else or there was no chance of me taking the gold today. I decided to scout out another area. That was a definite mistake, as several others finally found lift in another direction. Man on Man scoring is an interesting contest. You can stay in the hunt by doing nearly as well as the others in your group, but you can get buried if you don't make your time in a 10 min duration task. I GOT BURIED! That hurt, but I somehow managed to keep 5th place. Sunday dawned cloudy, with a touch of light rain. The ceiling was a little low, but it rose by contest time. The winds woke back up too, probably about 10 mph again. One difference was the wind direction was less favorable to generating the slope lift observed on Saturday. The tasks were similar to Saturday's, starting with 5 min and working up to 10 min tasks. The flight score for every round was 900 points with a 100 point landing score. This was a standard precision duration scoring for this contest, no man on man. The landing task was the L-6 type for both days. I managed to nail my first flight with a perfect 1000 point score, so I started in good shape. As you should expect, there were plenty of other good pilots in the hunt. I wasn't as sharp in the later rounds, but I managed to hold onto 2nd throughout the 4th round. OK, here we go again. I'm in position to win the contest, I just need to perform in the 5th round. There was no way I was going to screw up my launch again...I put it into the stratosphere. On a 10 min task, a great launch is helpful, but nothing is going to save your a** unless you find lift. I didn't. On this flight, the only good thing I can say is that I nailed another 100 point landing. That Addiction is an amazing landing machine! Giving away 400 points won't leave you with "wood" in any respectable contest. This one was no different. I ended up in 8th. Oh well! As I sign off from this post, I notice there is huge irony in my

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world, I appreciate the service that others provide us when they take the time to bring their laptop and upload a report from the contest. Since nobody has really provided a play by play yet, I figured I could add my 2 cents. I arrived at the site on Friday afternoon to witness the RES action. I immediately heard about the morning's HLG action, Bruce Davidson breaking one of his planes, Oleg putting one in a tree. I didn't catch any of the RES action as I was catching with old friends and hearing the current scoops. The field was gorgeous, with a mowed length of about 3/4 mile and width of about 1/4 mile. The weather in the mountains of North Georgia was quite mild compared to what I'm used to in steamy Tallahassee. Saturday dawned fairly clear. The winds picked up after mid-morning, probably about 10 mph. The conditions weren't too bad. Depending on the wind direction, you could slope off the various tree lines and catch a thermal breaking loose there. The tasks for the day were reasonable, 5 min in the morning progressing to 10 min in the later rounds. The contest was flown in a man-on-man format, so all flight group scores were normalized. I started out in mid-pack, but worked my way up to 2nd by the forth round flying my Addiction. Oleg managed to "mash" his plane while running in 1st place. That opened up the contest to the rest of us. Russ Behr was in 1st after 4 rounds, flying an Icon. I was in one of the later flight groups, so I was enjoying myself gabbing with other flyers when Rob Glover came over and pointed out that Russ and I were both flying in Group K for the 5th and final round of the contest. WOW...this was it! Mano-a-Mano...all the marbles were on the table. I had never been in this position before. Sure, I had been a multiple champion in the Florida Soaring Society and a Tangerine Soaring winner, but I hadn't flown in what was amounting to a man on man fly-off. I should mention that my score was only a few points less than Russ's, so I knew I could take the contest. I launched first in the group, so I knew that I would be covered by Russ. In my zeal to get a good launch, I did exactly the opposite. I did my zoom a little early and didn't get the normal ballistic zoom that I could have. So I started off