posted Apr 9th, 2010 - The judging videos of Round 2 at the World Challenge 2010 are now available for reviews, and there is much room for discussion after seeing the Top 11 videos from a different angle.

The discussion began already before the fast sequence of only Random Formations (J,M,E,D,L) came up in Bedford. It was quite a coincidence that last year's competition draw for the World Challenge 2009 already included a similar sequence.

Perris Fury's 59-pointer in Round 4 of the 2009 competition (A,C,E,H,K) was the new 4-way record score for a single round. This year's sequence was even faster, and the Fury speed fans took advantage of the new opportunity.

World Challenge 2010 - Round 2 - Top 11 in final ranking order

Last year's record round caused almost as much shaking of the leaderboard as this year's did, there were only different victims. Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge, the French national team, was in 3rd place after Round 3, only three points behind the leader, Arizona Airspeed. Maubeuge then scored 15 points less than Perris Fury (44 - 59) and fell hopelessly behind to finish in 5th place. France did well after Round 4 but had no chance to come back into contention for the top spots.

The maker or breaker came obviously earlier this year. Round 2 had a similar result as in 2009. Airspeed was in 1st place after Round 1, lost 11 points in the fast round and ended up in 5th place after ten rounds.

Perris Fury's 66-pointer surely was the best score after the 35 seconds of working time. However, the situation was different after only 29 seconds.

Fury had collected 55 points by then and was well on the team's way to the 66-pointer and new record score for a single round. However, one team was even already far beyond that number after 29 seconds: XL The NSL stop watch counted 59 points in the same 29 seconds and before the major meltdown. XL was obviously on the way to a 70-pointer in time if...

By the way, it was difficult enough for the NSL News amateur judge to just push the button at the right time and according to the number of points. It was impossible to make proper judgement of whether all formations and grips were correct or not.

The judges apparently applied slower speed at times and still had a very difficult job to come up with correct scores for this round. They used extra time and fell behind the pace by trying very hard to make good judgements.

Another interesting aspect is the fact that XL scored only two points more than Airspeed and lost six points to the winner after ten rounds, Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge. Airspeed never recovered from the fast round, while XL came back and ended up only one single point behind the first place.

The NSL News also compared other data of the 2009 and 2010 record sequences. 11 teams scored 40 and higher in 2009, 16 teams this year, nine of them beat the 50. Last year's average of the Top 12 was a 46-pointer, this year the Top 12 combined for 657 points, which gives the average team of this group a 54-pointer. In other words, the Top 12 all together scored each point in 0.65 seconds (0.75 last year). Perris Fury needed only 0.53 seconds per point (0.59 last year). XL scored a point every 0.49 seconds before the meltdown...

The same Top 12 teams that collected a total of 657 points in Round 2 lost only 10 points in this fast sequence. Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge was clean, XL lost one point, NMP-PCH Hayabusa two points, Perris Fury was clean, and Airspeed lost one point.