posted Jul 23rd, 2016 - It did not take too long until iFLY SFBay's Indoor Cloud League team countered the recent update of iFLY Orlando's July scores.

In fact, Northern California Skydiving League Director Lori Connor had collected her scores and videos earlier this month and just posted all data later. However, the iFLY SFBay team outscored the ICL teams and competitors in Florida and took the July lead for the 12+ flying chambers. The updated 12+ leaderboard now also includes the AAA Class score posted by iFLY Houston earlier this month.

The July Tunnel Kicker of the Northern California Skydiving League happened a few weeks back at iFLY SFBay with ten teams participating. Lori Connor reported that as usual, some of the teams were "real" teams that actually fly together both outdoor and indoor, but most of the teams were pick-up lineups with player coaches that the NCSL organizes and puts together for the Tunnel Kicker events.

ICL - July 2016				AAA	AA	A	RRR	RR	R	Total
Rank	July 12+			B,14,C,17	B,7,14	B,C,7	B,C,P	M,B,C	M,B	Total
1	iFLY SF Bay	US	ICL	19	19	17	23	17	17	112
2	iFLY Orlando	US	ICL	13	19	23	15	16	12	98
3	iFLY Houston	US	ICL	17	-	-	-	-	-	17

Lori Connor explained how her ten teams posted the six best scores: "The teams flew a total of seven rounds competing in an internal NCSL competition where the best rounds are then submitted to the National Skydiving League to be scored on behalf of iFLY SFBay for the Indoor Cloud League (ICL)."

"There are six classes in the ICL – R/RR/RRR/A/AA/AAA, with the R Class being the entry 4-way level and AAA for the expert 4-way flyers. Everyone is always anxious to see if their rounds end up being the winners that are submitted to the NSL for a particular class. There sometimes appears to be more competition internally than against the other 12+ tunnels that comprise the Indoor Cloud League."

The NCSL teams have been flying 1.5 hours at each monthly Tunnel Kicker, with all rotations representing the ICL sequences. The 1.5 hours of ICL competition each month are then unofficially scored by Lori Connor, League Director of the NCSL, where she carefully reviews each video trying to be as fair as possible.

iFLY SF Bay - July	AAA	AA	A	RRR	RR	R	Total
Teams	B,14,C,12	B,2,14	B,C,2	B,C,P	M,B,C	M,B	Total
Volker Haag, Deanna Frank, Julius Frank, Leander van Schriek	19	-	-	-	-	-	19
Christian Trefault, Vignesh Elamvazhuthi, Lukasz Weber, Sylvain Florand	-	12	-	-	-	-	-
Ben Myles, Richo Butts, Bolek Kulbabinski, Julius Frank	-	-	-	23	14	-	23
Lauren Pruett, Joanna Kulbabinska, Angie Clifford, Deanna Frank	-	-	-	13	15	-	-
Michelle Hart, Kiran Shivaram, Eli Rhodes, Ethan J. DeLano	-	14	17	-	-	-	17
Karen Cruz, Jeff Bodin, Mahlon Chute, Jeff C. Jensen	-	9	12	-	-	-	-
Val Ryabov, Alan Snyder, Achal Asawa, Julius Frank	-	-	-	-	17	14	17
Krista Gusack, Laura Reed, Jackie Rhodes, Deanna Frank	-	-	-	-	12	17	17
Pete Swan, Lana Michelle, Raymond R. Hebert, Maria Garcia-Sheets	-	-	14	13	-	-	-
Will Harris, Volker Haag, Lori Connor, Leander van Schriek	-	19	-	-	-	-	19
iFLY SF Bay's Best of July	19	19	17	23	17	17	112

Her "pre-judging" is not only counting the points in 35 seconds from the break of the 1st formation. She also has to determine if any busts occur where everyone's grips may not all be on at the same time before the point is keyed and/or whether the last point happens before the 35 seconds run out.

It's a challenge in the 12+ flying chamber, where she uses two GoPro camera angles trying to be set high enough to capture all of the grips, but sometimes the angle just doesn't show everything well enough to be able to score the point.

Lori Connor has been working on her judging skills since August 2013 when the NCSL first began with the Tunnel Kickers at iFLY SFBay. 58 points was the total that month on the ICL Leaderboard. Now, in contrast, iFLY SFBay is in 2nd place in the overall annual rankings with a total of 744 points in 2016, only 23 points behind iFLY Orlando in 1st place.

Lori Connor has organized a total of 36 Tunnel Kickers at iFLY SFBay since the first one in August 2013 – which means that a total of 54 hours of video has been scored for a total of 194,400 working time seconds (3,240 minutes). Even with that experience, each month when the "unofficial" videos are later scored at the NSL headquarters, the final scores sometimes still do not match the pre-judging.

Lori Connor submitted only the best videos in each category after reviewing and judging all 1.5 hours of July videos for iFLY SFBay's internal competition at the last Tunnel Kicker. The pre-judged July scores were only one single point different compared to the officially posted scores.

Lori Connor enjoys to watch the progression of her ICL competitors: "It's always interesting to see each team's progression throughout the evening while repeating the same sequences, and the difference in scored points from the 1st round to the 7th round. The ability to accumulate all of that muscle memory with repeated rotations in the tunnel is why the tunnel is so valuable to us to become more awesome flyers."