posted Nov 7th, 2012 - The 4way Advanced Class leaderboard at the USPA Nationals 2012 was an interesting mixture of different kind of teams.

Vibe, the winning guest team, is a combination of weekend amateurs who invested a lot of time and money to get to the top of the leaderboard. Both Dubai Asaar lineups (Red and Gold - 2nd and 5th) are young teams and have unlimited training resources at their home in the United Arabian Emirates, host of the Mondial 2012.

The Air Force teams (Paradigm and Legacy - 3rd and 4th) are in a very similar situation as the Dubai teams, as they don't have to spend their own money for training and competition.

The USPA bronze medal winner in this one of the two AAA Class categories (Open - Advanced), ZeBone, is a player coaching lineup. Former Airspeed 8way world champion of 2004 and then Paraclete XP 4way and 8way member Andy Honigbaum is the main ZeBone player.

He is assisted by Jan Lane, who almost won an Advanced Class gold medal in 2002 after a tied jump-off with Nemesis and a following tie-breaking procedure. Kurt Disser and Sabrina Graham are the players, Eric Bobenhausen was filming ZeBone.

USPA Nationals 2012		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	Advanced Class	3,B,K,H	F,7,22	O,4,D,13	A,M,11,8	N,P,G,19	L,20,1	5,16,J	6,21,12	18,17,10	E,C,Q,15	Total	Avg
1	Vibe (US)	21	17	16	17	18	15	17	14	13	19	167	16.7
2	Dubai Asaar Red (AE)	17	17	16	16	20	14	19	14	11	18	162	16.2
3	Air Force Paradigm (US)	21	14	17	16	17	10	15	11	11	19	151	15.1
3	Air Force Legacy (US)	20	14	13	13	17	14	17	12	13	18	151	15.1
5	Dubai Asaar Gold (AE)	17	17	15	14	16	13	16	14	11	17	150	15.0
6	ZeBone (US)	15	14	14	16	18	12	15	12	8	15	139	13.9

The three sets of USPA medals went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado and to ZeBone. Vibe was not eligible for USPA medals, even though all team members live in different states of the USA.

Former Perris Fury member Uli Stuwe was the main coach and worked with the team at the USPA Nationals. Vibe gives additional coaching credit to Andy Delk, Chris Farina and Christy Frikken who all worked with Vibe at least at one training camp. George Katsoulis was on the Vibe camera.

Vibe did their outdoor training jumps in Perris and Eloy. The indoor training took place at Paraclete XP, and the team members traveled to the training sites from Connecticut (Jane McGuire), Florida (Christine Freiherr) and California (Mikhail Markine, Don Burnette).

Vibe caught the NSL News attention for the first time when the team posted a 16.2 average at the September meet of the Southern California Skydiving League. The follow up story on 13 October 2012 introduced the team in detail. The same story mentioned that Vibe seemed to be almost too strong for the Advanced Class competition. The 16.7 average at the USPA Nationals 2012 is now the second highest Advanced Class result after SDC Rhythm XP's 16.9 average in 2008.

USPA Nationals 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	3,B,K,H	F,7,22	O,4,D,13	A,M,11,8	N,P,G,19	L,20,1	5,16,J	6,21,12	18,17,10	E,C,Q,15	Total	Avg
9	SDC Furies XP (US)	21	19	17	18	19	15	20	14	12	17	172	17.2
10	Vibe (US)	21	17	16	17	18	15	17	14	13	19	167	16.7
11	Dubai Asaar Red (AE)	17	17	16	16	20	14	19	14	11	18	162	16.2
T12	Air Force Paradigm (US)	21	14	17	16	17	10	15	11	11	19	151	15.1
T12	Air Force Legacy (US)	20	14	13	13	17	14	17	12	13	18	151	15.1
14	Dubai Asaar Gold (AE)	17	17	15	14	16	13	16	14	11	17	150	15.0
15	Perris Wicked (US)	18	15	14	16	20	11	16	12	9	17	148	14.8
T16	ZeBone (US)	15	14	14	16	18	12	15	12	8	15	139	13.9
T16	Spaceland Lite (US)	16	16	14	15	15	9	15	10	12	17	139	13.9
18	Fastrax J3 (US)	1	17	14	15	19	15	17	13	12	12	135	13.5
19	Crimson Fox (CA)	11	11	12	11	13	8	9	8	8	13	104	10.4

Vibe was well prepared for the team's main competition of the 2012 season after collecting meet experiences at the two SCSL meets in August and September.

There they competed both times with Perris Wicked who then decided to sign up for the Open Class competition at the USPA Nationals. By the way: Perris Wicked's 14.8 average would have won the bronze medals in USPA's Advanced Class and was very close to the winning Air Force scores (15.1) in Eloy.

Vibe would have ended up in 10th place on the Open Class leaderboard, right in front of Perris Wicked and a few points behind the SDC Furies XP, who finished with their best average (17.2) ever. The Furies are not a female lineup any longer since former Airspeed member Chad Smith joined the team as a player coach.

The future of Vibe is open at the moment. The team has not announced any plans yet.