posted Jun 17th, 2010 - The second meet of the United Kingdom Skydiving League 2010 season was held at the Cark dropzone in the north west of England. 17 teams made the journey to Cark, and for the second time this season it was the junior categories that were most popular with seven teams registering for the Rookie Class, eight in the A Class and two in AA.

The high numbers of junior teams entering UKSL meets illustrates how accessible 4-way competition is in the United Kingdom and points to a high future standard, as competitors move up to the more senior ranks.

There was some scepticism before this meet from those who had visited Cark before that the weekend might involve more cups of tea than jumps, but thankfully weather predictions were proved wrong, and Saturday turned out to be blue skies with moderate winds.

Cark got the competition off to an early start, and with the PAC flying all day without a break the rounds were soon being completed. All six rounds were finished in one day, and credit must go to all the staff at Cark, especially the pilots, manifestors and dz control, for all the hard work which went into making this happen. There were 40 lifts and over 500 descents in one day – a record for Cark!

Jun12th, 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Total	Avg
Rank	AAClass	B,9,21	J,P,E,L	G,M,7	4,Q,14	22,6	19,13	Total	Avg
1	UK Unagi	14	17	11	9	8	7	66	11.0
2	UK Funakatz	7	9	11	6	6	6	45	7.5

In the AA Class, the consistently successful Unagi faced some competition from a local team put together for this meet. Despite a bootie malfunction for Unagi's Point during Round 4, Unagi took gold comfortably with Funderkatz putting up a brave fight for second.

The gold and silver medals in the A Class went to the same two teams as at the previous UKSL meet, this time with one key difference. At Netheravon, Gr4vity had won with a cushion of over 30 points between them and silver medal team Eclipse. That gap was closed to just two points at this meet, with the teams scoring 78 (13.0) and 76 (12.7) points respectively.

Third place was tightly fought throughout the day between four teams but eventually went to Warwick University team Tetris, who despite flying with a substitute Inside Centre scored respectable 35 points.

Jun12th, 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Total	Avg
Rank	AClass	B,9	J,P,E	G,M,7	4,Q	6,21	19,L	Total	Avg
1	UKGr4vity	17	20	14	10	9	8	78	13.0
2	UK Eclipse	16	17	14	9	9	11	76	12.7
3	UK Tetris	7	9	5	5	6	3	35	5.8
4	UK Nimeton	6	5	8	4	5	5	33	5.5
5	UK RAFSPA Phoenix	4	7	7	3	5	6	32	5.3
5	UK Luke Warm	7	9	6	1	5	4	32	5.3
7	UK Karma	5	7	5	4	2	2	25	4.2
8	UK Heads & Safety	2	3	4	2	5	2	18	3.0

The Rookie Class turned out to be the closest competition, with only 9 points separating the Top 5 teams. Herding Kat took gold with a very consistent performance, and High Altitude Heroes, who had won at Netheravon, settled for silver after a poor Round 6.

Third place went to Raykipo once again who had improved their average by impressive two points since Netheravon. In fact, all of the Rookie Class teams that competed at both meets had improved their average.

Information Overload, who had completed only one jump together previously, narrowly missed out on medals and ended up in 4th with a very solid performance. RAFSPO Typhoon, second at Netheravon, ended up in 5th place this time round.

Jun12th, 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Total	Avg
Rank	Rookie	B,L,O	J,P,E	G,M,N	Q,A,D	K,H,F	L,C,P	Total	Avg
1	UK Herding Kat	8	6	8	9	7	7	45	7.5
2	UK High Altitude Heroes	8	9	6	7	10	2	42	7.0
3	UK Raykipo	8	8	7	2	10	4	39	6.5
4	UK Information Overload	8	6	6	5	7	6	38	6.3
5	UK RAFSPA Typhoon	5	7	6	5	7	6	36	6.0
6	UK 4mula	5	6	6	4	6	3	30	5.0
7	UK Last Minute.com	1	0	0	0	-	-	1	0.3

With the competition finished there was time for a few beers and an opportunity to watch the England vs USA World Cup game whilst Rounds 5 and 6 were scored by the judges. Suffice to say the scores from the 4-way meet were far more impressive than the result produced in the football match...

After a very long day celebrations continued into the early hours but anyone hoping for a lie in was sorely disappointed when the pilot decided to do a fly-by over the camping area to wake people up in time for the medal ceremony on Sunday morning!

Once again this was another great meet, and thanks must go to all those at Cark for running such a fantastic day, to Dave Honeybone, Helen Arnold and Simon Catherine of Sonicnutz for their fantastic free coaching and to the judges for all their hard work.

Written by Jenny Buckle