posted Nov 10th, 2009 - Exciting news came from Las Vegas yesterday. Perris Fury was on a well deserved team vacation at the end of another successful season. The trip to Las Vegas included the evaluation of the 2009 season and a planning session. Fury's Point Josh Hall informed the NSL News after the meeting that his team is moving on.

He said that plans are made for the 2010 season and that the team may decide to add two more years after that. This would make the World Championship of Formation Skydiving in 2012 the ultimate goal.

The NSL News story on 25 October 2009 had already covered the Fury situation after the 2009 USPA National Skydiving Championships and concluded with an open end: "The Fury members will soon meet and discuss the past year and the future of the team. Hopefully, the most consistent Airspeed challenger of the past three years will continue with the same energy and motivation. And hopefully, other US top teams will join the races of the 2010 season."

The confirmation of a new Perris Fury season in 2010, and possibly for three more years, is great news for the sport and for 4-way competition in the USA. It means that the top teams will continue to challenge each other and push for new performance levels.

Perris Fury will continue with exactly the same lineup (Chris Farina - Inside Center, Christy Frikken - Center Outside, Josh Hall - Point, Uli Steuwe - Tail). Only the video slot will once again be open. Karen Lewis filmed the team at the USPA Nationals, but she will not be a full time member for the 2010 season.

Fury offers a new opportunity for up and coming videographers to join the lineup and learn with the team. Karen Lewis may step in again for the bigger meets if necessary.

It will be a late start for Fury next year. Tail Uli Steuwe needs a foot surgery later this month, which will put the team on a hold until the beginning of January 2010. The team has still scheduled a short training camp before the surgery, as the break will be longer than the team members like to stay away from 4-way training.

This passion for their main event is one of the reasons that keeps the team going. Perris Fury is a self-made team that started in 2005 on a 15-average level. The progression to the current performance level is based on the passion and the commitment of the team members.

Josh Hall said that his team had a great season: "Sure, we did not win, but that was really the only downside of the year. Other than that, we had a great time and improved a lot, once again."

He said that a great learning curve began after the first events this year, the Valentine's Meet, the Shamrock Showdown and the World Challenge. Fury really did some great homework at that time and studied their own jumps and the jumps of their top competitors in all details.

It worked very well at that point in time, and the Fury members now began with the same evaluation much earlier. The end-of-the-year vacation in Las Vegas wrapped up the review of the 2009 season, which provided many new insights for the team.

Josh Hall said that his team felt like Fury was already much closer to Arizona Airspeeed and Spaceland Force XP than the actual numbers show. He took Round 1 as an example where the 3-point difference does not reflect the details of how the scores ended up on the scoreboard. Fury had a penalty in this round and was only split seconds away from the highscore.

The new round of NSL-TV, which features the Top 10 teams in Round 7 of the Open Class competition, shows also one of the two sole highscores that Fury claimed at the 10-round meet. In fact, the last four rounds saw Perris Fury as the strongest of all teams. The total of rounds seven to ten would have Fury as the winner.

Fury hopes that next year's competitions will eventually bring the first top spot at one of the meets. Winning a round here and there is nothing new any longer. Being on the top of the leaderboard at the end of the meet is the new goal.

The Perris team will even intensify the meet schedule in 2010 and attend all the 4-way competitions that will be available. The 2010 season will begin the same way as this year: Valentine's Meet - Shamrock Showdown - World Challenge.

The training schedule of 51 jumping days will include competition draws and draws, and even more draws. Josh Hall explained that the simulated competition draws in training simply bring all kind of different situations and options to the table that the teams wants to be prepared for.

Perris Fury will also add more tunnel training to the schedule than this year. However, the main focus will still be on quality, not so much on a high number of jumps or tunnel hours. The team wants to continue with collecting meet experiences and eventually win a competition.

The Fury members know that Arizona Airspeed has always ended up on the top due to the vast knowledge and meet experiences. Both teams, Fury and Airspeed, know that it is probably only a matter of time now when Fury may take the top spot at one of the meets.

Especially Airspeed is prepared for this situation. Craig Girard mentioned already a few times that his team appreciates the pressure. He sees the possibility that another team could win a meet: "So what? Then we will come back at the next meet and hopefully win that one. It makes it even more exciting."

It will be beneficial for Airspeed to be pushed by Fury next year. The French 4-way team has been dangerously close and now focuses only on 4-way after competing in 8-way, as well, at the past two world meets. Airspeed will have to work very hard in 2010 to defend the gold medals in Russia.

Perris Fury will also continue with all the other coaching projects next year. The team members have created their own following in the past years by offering fun and successful coaching projects. Four Perris 8-way teams competed at the USPA Nationals this year under Fury guidance. Perris Moxie, the all-female lineup with Christy Frikken, was the best one with an 11.4 average in the Open Class.