posted Jan 15th, 2011 - The only things left to do for NMP-PCH Hayabusa at the Dubai Championship 2011 are enjoying the award ceremony and putting the $20,000 to a safe place. Both probably come in a package. It combines for a nice finish of the trip to Dubai.

However, other things have been and are more important for the Belgian national team. They know that this event was just the first step in a 2-year project, and they have the next stpes in mind after finishing in Dubai.

The NSL News spoke with Mark Kirkby of the new Arizona Airspeed lineup after Round 8 was completed, and his feedback will soon be added the the Dubai aftermath. First, here is a summary of the event from Hayabusa's perspective, provided by team speaker Roy Janssen, and the story begins earlier in time:

NMP-PCH Hayabusa in Dubai 2011

Written by Roy Janssen

"After the World Meet 2010 we had to go back to the drawing board to find new directions for our training. It's no secret that Menzelinsk was a disapointing end result, and we had quite some internal changes in the team.

First of all, So stepped back, and Bambi took over his Point slot. Then two new people joined us within our Army management, Major Erwin de Clerqk and Commandor Luc Roskams. Finally, Gary Smith is now also involved as a coach together with Joey Jones.

We know that we had to change things to keep being competitive, especially after the very strong display of the teams from France and the USA. We have done less than 100 jumps between the World Meet and the Dubai competition and had stopped training on November 1st.

The last two months we flew around six hours in the Dutch windtunnel.

Before coming to Dubai our goal was to get a podium place, and the worst case senario would be a third place with no more than 10 points behind the first place.

It was hard to tell how strong France and Airspeed would be at the moment since they were both somehow in the same situation as we were. Maybe this time we fought with the same swords they had...

We can be very happy looking back to the eight rounds. We did the best we could possibly do at this moment in four out of eight rounds. Those jumps were not exceptional or perfect - just the best for now. I guess that's already worth a lot.

We switched places a few times on the leaderboard with the French team, which was actually nice. Our competition experiences from the past made us really enjoy the battle with the other two teams.

Round 6 wasn't a pretty jump for us, but we knew our weakness and we were ready for that. Round 7 was more our style, even though the arrivals of Block 11 were pretty hard. It was still good enough to catch up with the French team.

Round 8 was not a question of what to do - just how fast we could go. We knew that the French team and Airspeed would be very hungry as well. At the end we pulled it off, had a nice jump but lost a little time at one arrival of Block 8 and Block 9. We expected that it would come down to one point more or less. Unfortunately, the French team had some bad luck, and we gained four points on them.

It's an important victory for us in all ways. However, it is still just one meet we won, the most important ones are still to come. France and the new Airspeed lineup will surely be training hard and making fast progress. It's up to us to keep up with them, and hopefully we can stay ahead. But again, we take it step by step and keep adjusting on the way.

Our respect goes out to Airspeed who announced that it was their last meet together. They set new standards that are unbelievable and hard to achieve as well. Also heads off to the French team for their great sportmenship and inspiration!

For now, we go and enjoy our victory. Thanks to all our sponsors and the support we received during the last week!"