posted Apr 29th, 2009 - The NSL News introduced two new lineups of the Southern California Skydiving League already before the SCSL competition season had begun, PACK'D from San Diego on 13 April 2009, and Elsinore BTE from the home DZ of the season opener on 22 April 2009.

Both teams obviously attended the competition in Elsinore, and both teams finished in 1st place of their divisions with small fields on a weekend with two meets, one in Elsinore and the other one in South Carolina. The AAA Class had only two teams competing in Elsinore, while SCSL Rookie Class team PACK'D shared the leaderboard with two teams from the Carolina Skydiving League.

Elsinore BTE (Melanie Curtis - Center Inside, Nick Grillet - Tail, Julia Herrmann - Point, Steve Simar - Center Outside, Meili Modini on camera) did not have much competition on site in the AAA Class and none at all in Carolina. The new lineup could put up the first scores without any pressure.

The biggest challenge for Elsinore BTE was to get the jumps on the screen for event judge Steve Miller. Melanie Curtis reported "quite a significant amount of video busts across the board". She added that her team is working on it: "We're building toward an NJ free Nationals!" Event judge Steve Miller later confirmed the tough judging situation and a 10-point deduction for the home team in Round 1.

San Diego's new lineup PACK'D had as little resistance in the Rookie Class as Elsinore BTE in the AAA Class. PACK'D (Katie Chvistek - Tail, Padu Merloti - Center Inside, Aniz Rasslan Filho - Point, Chris Starsky - Center Outside, Donald Humphries - Camera) came close to the 10-point average level and had the Rookie Class competition in Elsinore only as a transition point.

The earlier story explained that the new team is planning to step up into the next competition class not only after the end of the 2009 season. PACK'D will compete in the A Class already at the next SCSL meet and wants to be ready for the AA/Intermediate Class dive pool at the USPA Nationals 2009.

The A Class, with three or four formations in each sequence, adds the first eight blocks to the 16 Random Formations of the Rookie Class. Additional eight blocks increase the technical challenge in the AA Class, with four or five formations per sequence. All AA Class blocks have neither memory nor slot switchers. The AA Class is identical with USPA's Intermediate Class.

The AAA Class is finally identical with the complete IPC dive pool and includes all 22 blocks in sequences with five or six formations. These sequences may have memory and/or slot switchers. PACK'D will stop stepping up from one competition class to the next one after reaching the AA Class this year.

AAA Class team Elsinore BTE had to deal with some challenging engineering already at the first meet. Four of the six rounds (2, 3, 4, 6) had the potential for slot switchers, while only two rounds (1, 5) made it easy for the AAA Class teams to find back to the top of the page.

Event judge Steve Miller, an experienced 4-way competitor who attended several regional meets and national championships with Elsinore GT and other AAA Class lineups, provided his feedback from the judges' perspective:

"Elsinore did its usually great job of running the meet. With six teams attending, we were through with Round 3 before noon. An extremely odd, and dangerous, wind situation resulted in about a two hour delay at the midway point. I think the delay may have caused some of the teams to lose their energy as the quality of the skydiving dropped a bit after the break. If I remember correctly, there were two teams that received scores of 1 in the last round. A good lesson to be learned for Nationals where anything can happen.

It was also a very tough day in the judging room with a high number of infractions (video and otherwise) handed (36 total). Elsinore BTE had a fantastic round 1, their best of the day, but they left 10 points in the judges room largely as a result of a video problem. Perris Jimani looked really nice on the AA all random round. Very clean. It was clear that they had spent some time in the tunnel. The Rookie Class team PACK'D from San Diego also looked really good. They are clearly ready to move up to the A Class."

The NSL News will hopefully be able to follow up with some of the meet videos to find out how the teams in California mastered the engineering challenges.