posted Feb 15th, 2012 - The NSL News posted a copy of the recent Blue Skies Mag article about SDC Rhythm XP and team projects in general yesterday and had covered the tryouts for a new Center Inside live at Paraclete XP in December. Former Perris Fury member Chris Farina was selected for the open slot, and the team has launched the 2012 season with the new lineup.

The Paraclete XP Indoor Championships 2012 was the first competition for SDC Rhythm XP with Chris Farina, and the NSL News was also live at the event site in Raeford when Rhythm posted the first scores this year.

The team also began with the outdoor training at Skydive Sebastian last week and continued this week. The NSL News used the opportunity of a relatively short driving distance from DeLand to Sebastian, at least compared to the distance between DeLand and Raeford, to visit SDC Rhythm XP on a training day shortly after the Blue Skies Mag article was published with the latest February edition. .

Paraclete XP Indoor 2012		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	C,20,13	B,18,O,8	K,A,16,Q	H,F,J,4	2,11,10	M,E,21,22	P,L,3,12	14,6,D	G,1,19	N,5,9	Total	Avg
1	USA Arizona Airspeed	25(-1)	29	38	39(-1)	22	29(-1)	28	27(-1)	25(-2)	38(-1)	300	30.0
2	XL	24	27	32	37	19	27	26	25	25(-1)	35(-1)	277	27.7
3	Golden Knights Gold	20(-1)	27	32(-1)	36	20(-1)	27(-1)	25	25(-1)	27	34(-2)	273	27.3
4	SDC Rhythm XP	23	24(-2)	31(-2)	34	17(-1)	27	24	25	24(-2)	29(-2)	258	25.8

Rhythm had just started to copy the competition draw of the Valentine's Meet 2012 for training jumps on Tuesday when the NSL News visited. New videographer Alex Bittner provided the videos of the first two rounds for the NSL News. The complete new lineup then took some extra time at the end of the day for a live conversation with the NSL News.

SDC Rhythm XP's 25.8 average at the recent indoor competition does not seem to be anything extraordinary. Arizona Airspeed's 30.0 indoor average, followed up by a 26.0 outdoor average last weekend, makes all other scores look almost minor. XL's visit in Raeford did not help much either to make the other teams, like Rhythm and Golden Knights, look very good.

However, Rhythm and both Golden Knights lineups did much better compared to their own performances last year. Rhythm had finished with a 24.5 average at the Paraclete XP Indoor Skydiving Championships 2011 and now posted 25.8 with Chris Farina.

SDC Rhythm XP at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2012 - NSL Talk visit in Sebastian on a Rhythm training day

The 25.8 average is even a point better than the 25.7 at the World Challenge 2011 where the competition draw included a Super Sequence with only Random Formations. Rhythm had posted 56 points with Rob Radez to boost the meet average.

Arizona Airspeed is out of reach for Rhythm at the moment and has even increased the distance after one whole year with the new lineup, and the Rhythm members made it very clear that they have great respect for Airspeed's performance level. However, they are also not afraid at all of pursuing it.

They will surely keep their eyes on the scores of the best teams in the world, and the Shamrock Showdown 2012 will be the next great opportunity. They will still mainly continue to check their own team's progression though. As long as the Rhythm performance and scoring level goes up they will eventually arrive at the Airspeed level one day. The question is only when that will be...