posted Oct 20th, 2008 - It is quiet now in Eloy after a very busy day. The beer truck area is not as busy as usual after a long day with seven competition jumps for almost all of the teams. The early start on Tuesday morning for the remaining three rounds does not motivate much to hang around for too long, as well. By the way, Larry, the Indian Pale Ale tab is running empty, and so is the one for the German Becks Oktoberfest...

Airspeed Odyssey is still controlling the Open Class competition despite a 2-point loss to France and Black Cat in Round 7. It will be interesting to see where this will lead the two challengers tomorrow.

France Maubeuge became stronger towards the end of the meet at the World Meet 2008 where they won the last three rounds by five point. Airspeed has a 4-point lead at the moment.

There is no other US team that can get even close to Airspeed. The Golden Knights are 18 points behind the world champions, and Perris Fury is one point behind the Army team. The new Black Cat lineup is already on a promising level, won Round 3 and tied the highscore in Rounds 4 and 7.

The battle for the 8th place and the unofficial amateur champion title is still on, and Arizona Divewerkz continues to defend this spot successfully round by round. It is an international competition even in this area of the leaderboard.

Mass Defiance is three points behind AZDW and will have to work hard to turn the table to the same standings as in 2007. Mass Defiance beat the Arizona team by 35 points at the USPA Nationals 2007, what a change!

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CSC Rhythm XP had a surprisingly weak phase of two rounds where Centerline XP outscored the Midwest team twice. However, Rhythm came back with vengeance and left everybody in the Advanced Class in the dust in Round 6. The highscore of 21 points increased the lead over Centerline XP by amazing eight points in just one round. And Centerline is still far ahead of the next team, Perris Katalyst in 3rd place.

The 17.5 average after six rounds would place CSC Rhythm XP currently in 13th place of the Open Class leaderboard, right in front of Inept and their 8-way partners of Sebastian Tempest. However, Rhythm still has to do the slow sequence of Round 7, which will probably lower the average a bit. It is a serious battle across the two leaderboards between Tempest and Rhythm that goes back and forth. Tempest is up by one point after six rounds and posted only a 12-pointer for Round 7...

The same five teams in the Intermediate Class (R4, Slipstream, AZ Throttle, Air Force Encore, Ranch Vortex) have maintained their scores for all rounds on the 2-digit level through six rounds. This series already ended for Throttle and Vortex after the slow sequence of Round 7. The 2-digit challenge still waits for the other three teams on Tuesday morning...

NSL News and PD are once again working on the NSL/PD Daily Show and the Night Swoop, which features CSC Rhythm's married couple, Janette and Steve Lefkowitz, tonight. The videos will be uploaded this evening and can be found at the same spot as today in the morning. The NSL/PD Daily Show of Monday in Eloy can also be viewed by clicking here. Good night.

Click here to go to the PD Blog photo gallery of the USPA Nationals 2008

Omniskore and NSL News share the load once again

The NSL News just had a quick lunch break, which took about five minutes. In fact, the lunch break took place in the Omniskore headquarters, and it was a bag of chips with some crackers. However, it was the greatest lunch since it was provided by Omniskore's T2 Tim Wagner. Tim works as hard as nobody can imagine, unless you have shared an office room with him. Yet he still found the time to slip out for a minute and remember the empty stomach of the NSL News reporter when he picked up some bits of food.

It feels good to be back in the harmonic Omniskore environment where the Wagner brothers and the NSL News have spent a lot of time over all these years. This time, Tim and Kurt Gaebel share the office with Jan Mayer, and the Omniskore operation between Tim and Jan is very efficient and professional. There was quite a bit of troubleshooting in the process, which never took much time to get done.

Round 4 is almost completely judged by now, and Judy Celaya's three panels still keep up with the turnaround pace quite well. Spaceland Directe XP posted an impressive 22-pointer in the Open Class, which is only one point behind the highscore of the round, and keeps climbing up the leaderboard. Arizona Divewerkz still holds the top position in the "amateur class", but Mass Defiance and Directe are moving closer.

It is hard to believe that CSC Rhythm XP lost a round in the Advanced Class. Centerline XP posted the highscore with a 17-pointer for Round 4, and the video can be viewed on NSL-TV. Gold and silver medal positions of the Advanced Class seem to be in solid ownership, however, a furious battle is taking place for the 3rd place. Perris Katalyst, with player coach Christopher Irwin, last year's silver medalist in the same class, is in a deadlock with Butter Bing after four rounds

Intermediate Class battle

Half-time in Eloy, at least for the Monday. All teams have completed Round 3 at noon, the Intermediate Class teams complete each cycle. It was time to begin a new NSL News page with the previous one filling up quickly.

Three teams seem to separate themselves slowly from the rest of the Intermediate Class field, which enjoys the best participation at the USPA Nationals 2008. Slipstream from the Northern Plains Skydiving League started out very strongly as the leader after Round 1 and lost the first place already in Round 2 to R4 from Northern California. Then Air Force Encore posted the sole highscore of Round 3 and took the second place away from Slipstream, as well.

All three teams who are currently in the medal positions are still very close to each other, separated by only two points. Five of the 24 teams have managed to score double digits in each round so far, and it seems that this is what it will take to get to the medal positions at the end.