posted Mar 9th, 2014 - It's all said and done at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2014. All teams completed all scheduled rounds in all four categories in two days, despite the bad weather conditions on Friday, and with one exception - NMP-PCH Hayabusa.

Roy Janssen could not recover in time, and the expected thriller for the 1st place did not materialize. Arizona Airspeed had no serious competition, even though Evolution's 4way Open Class lineup with Katie Woods finished only ten points behind the reigning world champions - closer than ever before.

In fact, Evolution won four rounds over Airspeed and tied another round. However, when Airspeed got serious and showed the team's peak performance level, no other top team had a chance. Only Hayabusa is going the same pace, or even faster.

Paraclete XP Outdoor 2014		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	18,2,O	D,19,22	G,C,P,10	9,A,L,H	K,16,B,Q	7,4,21	11,15,F	M,3,E,8	6,1,17	20,12,J	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed (US)	20	20	28	46	33	24	23	20	19	21	254	25.4
2	Evolution (CA)	21	22	25	40	30	21	23	23	20	19	244	24.4
3	VoltR (FR)	20	19	24	36	29	21	20	22	20	16	227	22.7
4	SDC Rhythm XP (US)	21	18	24	34	28	20	20	22	16	17	220	22.0
5	Carolina Turbo XP (US)	18	15	20	30	27	18	19	20	18	16	201	20.1

Arizona Airspeed has to swallow significant numbers of point deductions at this point in time. It's still a tough deal for the two defending world champions (Thomas Hughes, Mark Kirkby) with the new lineup to get back to the Hayabusa pace and keep it clean at the same time.

Airspeed collected a total of 18 point deductions this weekend in DeLand. NMP-PCH Hayabusa has the same lineup that finished with the 27.8 average at the Mondial Dubai 2012 and is used to the fast pace. The Belgian performance at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2014 provided more evidence that Hayabusa can easily handle the top speed, while Airspeed has not cleaned it up yet after getting to the top speed level.

The US national team has five months to get familiar with the winning scoring level of 2012 and bring the penalty situation back to the usual Airspeed standards. That's not much time, and Hayabusa seems to be in a very strong position. But then, "you don't win a world meet in a wind tunnel", and Hayabusa has no other opportunity to feel the pressure of a top outdoor competition. In addition, the winner of the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship usually wins the world meet. Does the formula fit for this year's situation...?