posted Oct 17th, 2021 - The story of the USPA Advanced Class champion of 2011 was actually not complete, even though the amazing continuation of Spaceland Lite and the team's individual team members was covered quite comprehensively.

There was another missing piece in the interesting story of 2011, which was a part of the series that has explained the history of this USPA category and introduced the annual winners since 1998. The next USPA Advanced Class champions will win their 2021 medals in only a few weeks.

The missing piece was the situation of the U.S. team that had finished on top of the Advanced Class leaderboard, disregarding the guest teams from Qatar and Dubai. The Qatar Tigers were in 1st place, ahead of Perris Air Rush and Spaceland Lite, and they were naturally not eligible for USPA medals.

It was a little bit more complicated with the strongest U.S. team on the Advanced Class leaderboard. Perris Air Rush were a 1-year team project, and the lineup consisted of three U.S. competitors (Glenn Frank, Daniel Pillasch, Terry Weatherford on camera), Hannah Betts, British 4-way Women world champion of 2008, and Andre van Heerden from South Africa.

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USPA Nationals 2011			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Advanced		M,5,13	21,14,22	12,20,D	11,Q,16	O,C,10,K	P,L,19,8	18,6,2	15,9,G	7,F,17	A,B,N,J,3	H,1,E,4	Total	Avg
G	Qatar Tigers	QA	13	13	12	14	14	13	12	15	18	16	-	140	14.0
G	Perris Air Rush	US	13	11	12	12	14	15	12	14	16	17	-	136	13.6
1	Spaceland Lite	US	14	12	11	11	14	12	13	14	16	14	-	131	13.1
2	Start 4	US	13	11	10	12	12	13	13	15	15	16	14	130	13.0
3	Fallout	US	12	11	10	14	13	14	11	13	16	16	12	130	13.0
G	Qatar Falcons	QA	12	8	11	13	14	14	11	15	16	16	-	130	13.0
G	Dubai Red	AE	14	9	10	11	13	13	12	15	14	15	-	126	12.6
4	Spaceland Havoc	US	13	9	11	11	12	12	11	10	12	16	-	117	11.7
5	Dallas En Fuego	US	12	9	7	12	13	13	11	11	14	13	-	115	11.5
6	Spaceland Mamba	US	13	11	6	12	13	10	10	12	11	14	-	112	11.2
7	CSC Syndicate	US	10	9	8	9	13	13	9	9	13	14	-	107	10.7
G	Dubai Gold	AE	11	9	8	10	11	9	11	11	12	13	-	105	10.5
8	Old Greg	US	10	11	7	13	8	12	11	12	9	10	-	103	10.3
9	Monkey Business	US	8	9	5	10	9	9	8	9	11	11	-	89	8.9
10	Mighty Merkins	US	10	8	6	9	7	7	7	9	11	11	-	85	8.5
11	Slice of Life	US	9	7	7	8	9	9	9	10	10	6	-	84	8.4
12	Bad Wolf	US	7	7	8	9	6	7	7	7	11	11	-	80	8.0
13	Creeped Out	US	9	7	5	8	8	8	5	8	9	11	-	78	7.8
14	Sunshine and Buttercups	US	6	7	6	6	3	7	7	7	8	9	-	66	6.6

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Hannah Betts had moved to California in 2010 and competed with the U.S. team Alpha Armada (Becky Brocato, Christy Frikken, Annaliese Peterson, Karen Lewis on camera) in 4-way Women at the Dubai Championship 2011. The DIPC events are sanctioned by FAI/ISC, and Alpha Armada competed officially for the U.S. delegation, with Hannah Betts in the lineup.

Her eligibility for USPA medals was not the actual obstacle for Perris Air Rush, as she had her Green Card and residence in California. Andre van Heerden was not a U.S. resident with a Green Card in 2011, and he was not eligible according to the USPA rules at that time. The California team outscored Spaceland Lite only as a guest team by five points.

Andre Van Heerden became a member of the South African national 4-way team Savolo later and competed at the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2014. The Advanced Class story of 2011 became even more interesting when Andre Van Heerden eventually joined Spaceland Lite in 2016.

He had won the USPA Advanced Class competition with a guest team and eventually joined the official USPA Advanced Class champions of 2011 five years later for three years in 4-way Open Class competition.

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USPA Nationals 2019		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Advanced	7,C,H,P	J,21,20	O,3,11	B,2,K,E	8,Q,10	15,D,F,12	N,L,M,14	6,1,9	A,18,13	G,4,5	Total	Avg
1	Redline XP	19	17	16	21	14	16	21	17	17	17	175	17.5
2	Elsinore Elevate	23	14	14	22	15	17	19	14	14	16	168	16.8
3	SNE CenterCell XP	23	14	14	18	14	11	18	15	14	15	156	15.6
4	Air Force Shadow	20	15	13	21	10	13	18	15	15	13	153	15.3
5	Vega XP	21	14	14	21	14	13	15	16	11	12	151	15.1
6	AZ Crime	19	13	14	17	11	12	18	15	13	11	143	14.3
6	Air Force Boomers	20	14	12	15	13	10	16	15	14	14	143	14.3
8	Arizona Alpha	21	14	14	17	14	11	14	14	9	14	142	14.2
9	SDC Rhevolution XP	17	14	12	16	12	13	14	14	13	13	138	13.8
10	Space Force BTR	18	14	13	18	11	11	18	14	10	10	137	13.7
11	SNE Fly Girls	18	12	13	14	11	13	14	13	12	8	128	12.8
12	Chill: Bu	18	13	11	17	9	11	14	13	11	10	127	12.7
13	Perris Goldilocks and 4 Bears	16	11	10	15	10	10	12	10	12	10	116	11.6
14	TSC Cadence	14	9	12	14	10	11	12	12	12	9	115	11.5
15	Fast Break	15	10	10	12	10	12	14	8	10	11	112	11.2
16	Paragon	13	7	11	12	9	8	12	10	7	9	98	9.8
17	AZ Shift	9	9	9	13	9	9	10	11	8	8	95	9.5
18	Perris Section 4	15	8	9	11	8	6	10	10	9	8	94	9.4

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Redline XP - Vega XP at the USPA Nationals 2019

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This was still not the end of the same Advanced Class story, which finally even arrives at the present situation. The NSL News pointed out at the previous part of the Advanced Class series that Spaceland Lite members Katrina Shows, Christy West and team videographer Cory Kossan continued as members of the U.S. national indoor and outdoor teams in 4-way Women.

Spaceland Lite 2016 - 2019 member Andre Van Heerden has continued, as well, and he even still connects with USPA's Advanced Class competition. The NSL News reported on 11 September 2020 that he and James Hall had joined Vega XP.

Vega XP's 2020 lineup, Annie and Ian Drennan still with former members Brandon Kashani and Nicholas Walker, had won the Advanced Class competition at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2020 before Andre Van Heerden and James Hall joined the team. They had to move up into the 4-way Open Class competition for this year's Paraclete event.

However, the new lineup is still eligible for USPA Advanced Class medals. USPA allows one team member in the lineup who has won a gold medal in the same category before. James Hall is reigning Advanced Class champion of 2019 with Redline XP, while Andre Van Heerden, Annie and Ian Drennan can still win their first USPA gold medals with Vega XP - if the team registers for the Advanced Class competition.