posted Nov 2nd, 2014 - It has been nothing new in the past years that Carolina Turbo XP caught the attention of the Sun Path Products NSL News and the audience when the team increased the scoring level time and time again. The progression just doesn't seem to stop or slow down, as the team's scoring chart between 2009 and 2014 is showing.

The 2014 season was the first one as a full time skydiving team and with new tail Nick Grillet, and the progression continued as in the previous years, even though it becomes increasingly difficult for teams to score higher every year on the top level of 4-way competition.

The second chart that compares the three US top teams provides the evidence, as Arizona Airspeed and SDC Rhythm XP both leveled out throughout the 2014 season.

USPA Nationals 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	L,F,3,D	8,C,Q,A	9,G,11	P,1,B,H	16,N,15	6,K,J,19	13,14,17	4,O,20	21,10,22	7,2,12	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	33(-1)	31(-1)	27	32	24	24(-1)	19	22	19	21	252	25.2
2	SDC Rhythm XP	31	26(-1)	23(-1)	27	21	19(-3)	19	19(-1)	17	18	220	22.0
3	Golden Knights	29	24(-2)	23	27	19	22	15	20	16	19	214	21.4
4	Carolina Turbo XP	28(-1)	26(-1)	23	27	17(-2)	22	17	20(-1)	15	18	213	21.3

Turbo's progression between 2009 and 2014 has obviously been easier than Airspeed's, and Rhythm's progression chart between 2007 (10.9) and 2012 (23.8) looked very similar. The results at the USPA Nationals 2014 provided new data, which confirmed that the Carolina team is catching up with the two US top teams of the past years, together with the female lineup of the Golden Knights.

The order between those four teams at the USPA Nationals (Arizona Airspeed - SDC Rhythm XP - Golden Knights - Carolina Turbo XP) has not changed since 2011, however, the distance between Airspeed and Turbo (24.3 - 15.0 in 2011, 25.2 - 21.3 in 2014) has changed by a lot.

The ranking order was only different at the beginning of the 2014 season when Turbo defeated the Golden Knights at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2014. The scores of March 2014 also show that SDC Rhythm XP did not allow Turbo and Golden Knights to get anywhere close at this point in time.

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	20	20	28	46	33	24	23	20	19	21	254	25.4
2	SDC Rhythm XP	21	18	24	34	28	20	20	22	16	17	220	22.0
3	Carolina Turbo XP	18	15	20	30	27	18	19	20	18	16	201	20.1
4	Golden Knights	18	17	22	24	25	17	18	18	14	15	188	18.8

Arizona Airspeed and SDC Rhythm XP then finished the 2014 season at the USPA Nationals on almost exactly the same scoring level as in March in DeLand, while Golden Knights and Carolina Turbo XP pushed each other to new team record averages in September.

The leaderboard shows that Rhythm had to allow Golden Knights and Turbo to steal highscores for a round here and there and keep closer than the USPA silver medalist might have wanted them to be.

However, the three teams behind Airspeed have their own goals. Rhythm is only looking up and not behind, as the distance to Airspeed is the only thing that matters. The Golden Knights are mostly looking at the scores of the French national team in 4-way Women, as Arizona Airspeed will compete for the USA in the Open Class. The world champions of 2012 (Thomas Hughes, Niklas Hemlin) and silver medalists of 2014 (Chris Farina, Thiago Gomes) themselves are looking at the FAI gold medals in 2016...