posted Feb 20th, 2009 - There have been rumors in the skydiving community that a new top team will enter the race for this year's 4-way top spot in the USA. These rumors seem to have become reality, as some of the team members recently confirmed.

The lineup consists of Shannon Pilcher, Ian Bobo, Thomas Hughes and Gary Beyer.

Thomas Hughes competed with the British national team Sebastian XL at the World Meet in 2003 and then helped Natasha Montgomery on her way to become the first female 4-way world champion with Arizona Blade in 2004. He was the alternate for DeLand Fire and trained and competed in 4-way and 8-way for Airspeed in 2006.

John Hart hired him in 2007 for the Team Fastrax lineup, and the team won silver medals at the USPA Nationals 2007 with a 24.4 average.

He filled the Center Inside slot for Perris Fury in 2008 when Chris Farina was grounded due to an injury. He also competed at the World Meet 2008 in 8-way with Team USA and won a silver medal behind France. Team USA also competed at the USPA Nationals 2008 and placed 3rd behind France and Airspeed.

Gary Beyer was an Airspeed member between 1995 and 2002 and won an 8-way gold medal at the World Meet in Australia 1999 with the US team.

He tried to defend the Airspeed gold medals in 2001 and ended up one point behind the Russian 8-way team in 2nd place. Gary Beyer still competes with player-coach teams and has joined a few Airspeed reunions at USPA Nationals. He dedicates the majority of his time to 4-way and 8-way team coaching.

PD Factory Team members Shannon Pilcher and Ian Bobo have mostly focused on Canopy Piloting ever since they won the World Championship of Formation Skydiving with DeLand Fire in 2006. They competed with DeLand Groove at the USPA Nationals 2006 and the Shamrock Showdown 2007 and skipped the USPA Nationals 2007. DeLand Groove came back for the Shamrock Showdown 2008, and Shannon Pilcher and Ian Bobo formed Performance Desired with Jack Jefferies and Dan BC for the USPA Nationals 2008. They also competed together with Thomas Hughes in 8-way.

The two world class canopy pilots from DeLand mentioned a few times that they never planned to quit 4-way competition at all. In fact, they have tried all the time to bring back their Georgia Tech alumni and former DeLand Genesis and PD Blue member Kyle Collins.

However, this plan has not materialized yet and may not in the future. Fact is that the new lineup with Thomas Hughes and Gary Beyer has made plans for the 2009 season.

Thomas Hughes posted on his website that the new team will begin with windtunnel training this weekend, and he explained the slots of the lineup. Gary Beyer is in the Point slot and flies the front piece with Center Outside Thomas Hughes. Shannon Pilcher is piece partner with Tail Ian Bobo as the Center Inside. He said that "the team decided to keep the world champion back piece together and move Gary and Thomas from the back to the front".

It's an interesting timing for launching the new team project. The talent and experiences of the team members guarantee an instant entry into the top level of 4-way competition in the USA and in the world.

However, two of the best US teams have already been together with the same lineups since the beginning of the 2007 season.

The reigning 4-way world champion from Arizona, Airspeed Odyssey, also started the 2009 season with the highest scores that have ever been posted in the month of February. Perris Fury may not have the same 4-way experiences as the veterans of the new lineup. Fury still has all the talent that is required to get to the very top, and the Perris team has collected a lot of competition experiences in the very busy last two years.

The new world class lineup does not have much time to catch up with Airspeeed Odyssey and Perris Fury who won the gold and silver medals at the USPA Nationals 2008.

The high-profile lineup indicates that the team will be very competitive and probably aim at the gold medals this year, which will qualify the winner as the US national team for the World Meet 2010 in Russia.

The team members said that they plan to compete at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009. This will be the time when Airspeed Odyssey and Perris Fury follow up on their first scores of the 2009 season at the Valentine's Meet 2009. The new world class team would add even more drama to the season opener of the Florida Skydiving League 2009. The NSL News will follow up with more information as soon as possible.