Last Task & Prize Giving

The third and last day of this competition started out with a blue sky in the front of take off (south-southwest) and some early cumulus forming to the east-northeast; then around noon we had some nice looking clouds filling up the sky to the south, but also some high cirrus, which I thought would shut off the lift for the rest of the day...
The window opened for the Sport Class and, as usual nobody wanted to go; 15 minutes later it opened for the Open Class and only Pedro felt like going. Slowly some more Sport Class pilots took off and then, also as it usually happens, everybody wanted to go! It looked difficult to stay up at the beginning, but the cirrus moved soon after and the thermals started kicking off in their usual "Peñón Style" soon after and they were all gone!


The last task for the Sport Class was a 55.7km route over 4 turnpoints and goal at the "Peñitas" LZ. After two days training and 2 days of competition flying, we wanted to give them a good challenge for that last day and they responded very well! Seven pilots 
completed the task; two of them had GPS problems and the scoring program did not award them "GOAL". Nevertheless their flights were fantastic and nobody will take that away from them! A great surprise was "El Chino", one of the local rookies, who flew 45.2km on a WW FALCON and came in 7th for the day! Day winners: Alfredo Grey 1st - José Luís "Clutch" Jaramillo 2nd & Alberto "Cuna" Jaramillo 3rd!


The Open Class had a 100.5km task also coming back to the "Peñitas" LZ; it was quite a difficult task and only 4 pilots made it in, Peter Neuenschwander (SUI) being the fastest, followed by Rudy, Attila (HUN) and Balazs (HUN)! Some other pilots landed at
the field, but they were just in-between turpoints. Also in this class we have 2 pilots who are not getting the points for their flights: one never brought his GPS, so he gets min. dist. and with the other pilot, I could not download a track for his flight because the GPS never turned on again, after the flight; moreover he did not copy his flight to an SD card and did not have a back up.... What a pity! Day winners: Peter Neuenschwander 1st - Rudy Gotés 2nd & Attila Bertok 3rd!

After having everyone reportback safely and downloading most instruments at goal, we went to the "Soleado" restaurant in town where the prize giving was going to take place, and worked on the final scores.

The Sport Class final results changed dramatically when Mark Vanderwerf who was leading the comp, did not make it to goal, Alfredo Grey won the task and Jeff Bohl came in fourth. It was very exciting because until the last moment they were not sure how the final outcome looked like and, honestly, I kept the information for the very last minute, just to make their anticipation and curiosity last as long as possible! Not to be mean, but it was so nice to see them all wondering and almost biting their nails!

SPORT CLASS WINNERS : 

3rd Place - Mark Vanderwerf (USA) / 1721pts

2nd Place - Alfredo Grey (MEX) / 1811pts

1st Place - Jeff Bohl (USA) / 1953pts

Alfredo (left) / Jeff (center) / Mark (right)

On the Open Class we also had a last day surprise when Fredy Bircher (SUI), who was on the 3rd place overall after task 2, did not make it to goal on this last day instead, Balasz did complete the task and jumped one place forward!

OPEN CLASS WINNERS : 

3rd Place - Balazs Ujhelyi (HUN) / 2414pts

2nd Place - Rudy Gotés (MEX) / 2810pts

1st Place - Attila Bertok (USA) / 1953pts

 

Balazs (left) / Attila (center) / Rudy (right) / Spectarios (around)

(Thanks to Jorge Vásquez Sr. and Jr. for these prize giving pictures!)

Despite having a "small" field in the Open Class, the WPRS point estimate (done by José Manuel) is pretty high, almost twice as much for any other "3-day-21-pilots" competition. The approximate points will be (place - points): 1 - 52.5 / 2 - 48.3 / 3 - 44.2 / 4 - 40.3 / 5 - 36.5 / 6 - 32.9 / 7 - 29.4 / 8 - 26.1 / 9 - 23.0 / 10 - 20.0 / 11 - 17.3 / 12 - 14.7 / 13 - 12.2 / 14 - 10.0 /  15 - 7.9 / 16 - 6.1 /17 - 4.4 /18 - 3.0 /19 - 1.8 /20 - 0.9 /21 - 0.3
Jose Manuel also mentioned posting a bunch of nice pictures from T2 on his FB page!

So, this is how the Peñón Classic Race 2015 came to an end...
I would like to thank everyone who attended, Manuel Ruíz for the shirts and for "getting this party started, VueloLibre Mexico for the support and helping with cleaning up the Piano LZ, Rudy & Pedro for the excellent job with the Sport Class pilots and task setting, together with Zac, José Manuel del Caso for pictures and his WPRS estimates; BIG thanks to Majo and Efrén for all their help in so many different things and the restaurants at Plaza Valle for the Day Prizes!

And to finish this post, an album with random pictures of the last day:

Good bye and maybe see you next year...

Task 2

With the late arrivals this morning, we have reached a field of 17 pilots in the Sport Class and 21 in the Open Class, 3 of which are in the top 10 WPRS list (Zac Majors 2nd; Gordon Rigg 5th and Pedro García 6th) for a total of 38 pilots!
Since we started on Wednesday with the training days for the Sport Class, the weather has been improving day after day and today was a pretty good day, even though it had its patches of rough air, according to some pilots.

I was not able to take many pictures today, especially since I had back up from  and José Manuel (the Mexican team leader who loves photography) and Freddy Yazbek, professional photographer (www.freddyyazbek.com); they both used to hang glide and now combine the love the sport with the passion for photography. José Manuel will send me a link, as soon as he uploads his pictures, to share on this page...(thanks!)

Tasks Summary:

• Sport Class: 39.5km - 5 pilots in goal and many others nicely spread awarding 930 points to the winner Fabián Gremión (MEX)! Mark Vanderwerf and Jeff Bohl, both from the US, were 2nd and 3rd.
• Open Class: 104.9km - also 5 pilots in goal and a nice spread of pilots throughout the course awarding the full 1,000 points to the winner Attila Bertok (HUN)! Peter Neuwnschwander (SUI) and Rudy Gotés in 2nd and 3rd place.

Many of the local pilots decided to land on the alternate field nearby, but could not resist  the temptation to come visit! When I too the picture about 5 of them had already jumped off the car, but I still tried to capture a bit of the idea:

Competition Summary
Before the last task we have the following situations:

• Sport Class: Mark Vanderwerf has an overall lead of just 86 points on Jeff Bohl who now has Fabián Gremión on the 3rd place 152 points behind...
• Open Class: Attila Bertok has a 138 point lead on Rudy who has a 104 points lead on Freddy Bircher (SUI).

It will be very interesting to see what happens this last day and what decisions will the pilots make in order to either keep their place or attempt to climb the list, we shall see...

Rudy giving some tips on how to fly the task

Mark Vanderwerf getting ready to launch and Majo Gularte assisting him

"El Chino" landing at the field after trying to make it past to the next turnpoint

I will try to have the link to the photo album up as soon as possible!

First Competition Task

Rudy flying over goal...

You can read about our day first or, if you are very curious, jump directly to the Results page on this site and come back to this post later!

We ended up with 16 Open Class and 13 Sport Class pilots flying today; not too bad, especially since some of the latter pilots are new to competition and some of the Open pilots are hot shots! It felt like a "VIP HG Comp" more than anything else: only a selected few...

The day started out looking gray, cloudy and cold; however things changed and around noon, it became quite a good looking sky! We chose the "Piano" as our goal for today because most pilots are already familiar with it and thanks to the support of VueloLibreMX, the south end of the field was cleaned up making it longer, therefore, safer!

The task set for the Sport Class first took them out in front to the southwest end of the take off ridge, then back towards the north, past take off and then back to the official "El Piano" LZ. It was an interesting flight for them all and talking to them afterwards, you could see how they had all learned something and were eager thinking about flying again tomorrow! Even a couple of them who landed too early, went up for a second flight; despite it not being valid (past the window closing time), they still attempted to fly the task and had a much better "second round". I was impressed by their spirit! 

  

                         
Five pilots made it to goal and we did the downloads directly at the goal field and towards the end of the day, I realized I had been left with the "locals" who live right next to this landing field, precisely those pilots who had never competed before. I could not resist but to stay a while longer and process the results right there: I wish you could see their faces and share their excitement; what a moment!!!

The Open Class had an 84.9km task with a final leg coming from the west over the take off ridge; their arrival looked really great! It was a good way for these pilots to "spread" their wings since most of them just arrived and are having their first flights after the long winter pause.

Nine Open Class pilots made it in, with Attila in first place, Rudy in second and Pedro in third!
Some pictures of the goal field:

Swiss pilot Fredy Bircher landing (red and black glider)

Tormod (Norway) 

Sport Class - Training Day 2

We had a great day today with the Sport Class pilots and the Open Class pilots who showed up this evening for registration! It was a long day and if you take  a look at the picture sequence, you will get a better idea of how it went!

• It all started with the fantastic breakfast at Chile Mole Pozole:

• Then Gerardo Mendez, was able to make it back in time to join us after going to pick his battens up, which he forgot the day before!

•  The task set for today, took them to a "remote" goal, which for several of our guests, was the first time they had ever either gone XC or landed somewhere different than the official "El Piano" LZ!!!

•  They were ready to leave around 12:30 and did an amazing job at working the broken lift around take off. According to the advanced pilots, it was quite a difficult day so our pilots did a great job flying around the area!

•  Gerardo, with all of his glider here, very happy just before launch, being helped by Efrén, one of our extremely helpful and nice staff memebers!

•  Jeff Bohl on his final very excited to have made it all the way to San Francisco (MEX), where the goal was...

•  "Clutch" one of the local newbies, who completed both of the training tasks!

• We had three Sport Class pilots at goal and our two mentors. There were a lot of locals come sit at the field to watch the show...

Pedro

Rudy

"Sólo Jeff" and Efrén carrying Jeff's glider to the van.

Alfredo Grey, first in, and some of our visitors

Pedro and a quiet crowd of spectators

"El Parce" who volunteered to bring back the windsock...(thanks!)

•  Then a drive back to HQ and a great late-lunch with a group of pilots, just in time to go back for the final chat with their mentors while we (with Majo's help) worked on the Open Class registration.

The Swiss pilots and "Potro" (local pilot)

It was a great day here at Valle de Bravo, being able to help and offer these less experienced pilots a chance improve their skills and have access to knowledge passed down from those flying at the top of the stack!
This was the end of their training and for the next three days they will have the opportunity of applying the things they have learned!

Sport Class - Day 1

Today we had our first training day with the "initial" Sport Class pilots batch  and it went pretty well!

We did a huge effort to make it up the hill as early as possible and, despite the several "first day issues" we were up there by 9:45 and were able to begin with our Clinic going through basic concepts for the 9 pilots who joined us today. Among these pilots we have 3 guys who are quite new and have never entered a comp before; it is a great opportunity for us to introduce them to the competition world  and help them as much as possible.

After the different presentations and questions, they went to set the gliders up while we prepared the task (32km over 5 turnpoints). They flew for around 2 hours and tried their best, some made it and some didn't, but they all enjoyed the day!

In the evening, while Pedro and Rudy were working with them, another four pilots arrived, which means we will have 13 Sport Class pilots flying!

Some pictures, including the map and task board:

Today was definitely a great start for our comp and we hope it will only get better!

For tomorrow, the first thing in our agenda is a delicious typical Mexican Style breakfast at the "Chile Mole POZOLE" restaurant at Plaza Valle!

Sport Class Meeting

The Sport Class Pilots will meet tonight (Tuesday) for final registration round and first Pilot Briefing, at Rudy's "Vuelo Libre México" shop located at the "Plaza Valle" starting at 18:30.

Any Open Class pilots who want to register tonight, may also do so!

Tomorrow WEDNESDAY meeting directly at take off at 9am! Those who signed up for retrieve, we will organize the departure time during tonight's briefing...

Thursday evening (19th) is the  General Pilot Briefing at 8pm, right after registration.

* * * * * * *

Esta noche reunión de pilotos SPORT a las 18:30 en el local "Vuelo Libre México" (de Rudy) para inscripciones y primera reunión pilotos.

Los pilotos OPEN que quieran pasar e inscribirse hoy, también lo pueden hacer!

Mañana MIÉRCOLES nos encontramos en el despegue a las 9am! Quienes hayan pedido el "retrieve" oficial, organizaremos detalles esta noche.... 

Jueves en la noche, es la reunión general para los pilotos a las 8pm, justo después de las inscripciones,

Plaza Valle - Food Court

Plaza Valle is like the informal HQ of the flying scene here in Valle were we all meet before and after the flying. Among their shops they have a paragliding "hub" and Rudy's "Vuelo Libre Mexico"  plus a series of restaurants with very nice food, good and friendly service.
These restaurants will be supporting our competition!   T-H-A-N-K-S !!

Different types of flavors for us to enjoy during the Peñón Classic Race 2015!