posted Oct 11th, 2005 - The NSL News has been collecting feedback from the AAA Class top teams after the USPA Nationals 2005. The evaluation of the event by the top competitors after a phase of digestion began with the recent interview of Gary Smith. The NSL News will continue to offer the insights and views from different team angles.

The new series of stories that will cover the evaluation of the 2005 season, the review of events from team perspectives and future plans of these teams will also include AA Class and A Class teams.

Team Fastrax founder John Hart provided the answers to NSL News questions that tried to review the whole competition. The NSL News was also interested in the future plans of the teams. The Team Fastrax Project will not only continue, John Hart plans to increase the efforts.

NSL News: John, the USPA Nationals are now more than a month behind us, the teams had some time to digest and evaluate the competition. Can you give me a brief summary through the ten rounds of the meet from the Fastrax perspective, please?

John Hart: Nationals for Team Fastrax went exactly the way we trained for it, solid builds and finishes and clean viewable separation. We had some great rounds and we had some average rounds. We ultimately were not flying fast enough, we were way too protective, we held back and this ultimately hurt us.

NSL News: How was the emotional situation for Fastrax throughout and after the competition?

John Hart: Nothing like the Anton Malevsky Memorial Cup. We left Russia emotionally drained questioning our plan and why we exploded in two of the ten rounds. We spent a lot of time working with Dr. John preparing for Nationals, developed a peak mental training plan and followed it. The team was much more prepared mentally for Nationals.

NSL News: Did the competiton turn out as tough as you expected it, or was it harder/easier?

John Hart: No, we knew that it was going to be a dog fight between six of the best teams in the World. In this sport your only competition is your mind. We really enjoyed coming to Nationals to jump with our peers and friends.

NSL News: Did the other teams perform as you expected, or were there any surprises for you?

John Hart: The draw was not a difficult draw, at Nationals Fire stepped up to the plate and performed. I was also impressed with Airspeed; they flew a clean and well executed meet. I was disappointed to see the Knights surrender to the same pressure we felt in Russia and lose the Gold. They were incredibly fast! Considering how little Deland Majik trained this year they performed at a competitive level.

NSL News: Taking a look at the whole 2005 season, how do you see the Fastrax progression from the hindsight?

John Hart: We went to Russia just coming off a speed phase in our training. We had not settled in to this new speed and it showed with the busts we tallied up. At this point we were progressing at the pace we had set for ourselves. We went to Russia wanting to average a 20. We finished with a 19.9 and our mistakes cost us the Silver in Round 10 and a 21 average. We should have trusted our training plan. Instead we viewed Russia as a setback and reassessed our training for the remainder of the year. We knew that our block times were as fast as any other team. We also knew that we were one of the fastest random teams in the world. Instead of charging ahead with our new speed, we choose to have more controlled builds and hold the finish of our blocks. In hindsight this was not the right decision for our team, we should have let ourselves adapt to the new speed and had the confidence that we would learn to control the tempo of the dive.

NSL News: You still have the World Cup 2005 and the NSL Championship 2005 on the team's agenda. What do you expect from Fastrax at these events?

John Hart: We left Nationals knowing that we followed the plan put in place after Russia. We arrived in Cincinnati and assessed where we were at and where we wanted to be. We made the appropriate changes to our training plan and will make around 200 training jumps prior to the Cup. We believe the plan we have put in place is our future. Every top team has their own style of flying. We went to Nationals not knowing what our was. Having tried two techniques at two major meets we have now indentified who Fastrax is and what kind of style we fly. With regards to what will happen at the Cup or SkyQuest, I can say that Fastrax is going to be competitive.

NSL News: The whole Fastrax Project has contributed a lot of great things into our sport. What are your plans for the future? Will we see the project continue, do you plan to keep building it up? What are the goals for next year and the future?

John Hart: As a team we have only been together for two years and accomplished a great deal. We now have international competition experience, and we know that on any given day we can compete with any team in the World. We are coming back strong in 2006. The project has added several major sponsors for 2006 and will be working close with the Jump Institute. In 2005 the Team Fastrax Project added Canopy Piloting and Women's 4-Way and sponsored World Champions Spaceland Anomaly. In 2006 we are adding a Sky Surfing team called Pulse with Oliver Furrer. We will also form another 4-Way team that will join Fastrax and train for 8-Way. We will be adding more technical information to our website in the near future as well as creeping video. In December we have an individual flying skills tunnel camp and have a few slots left for individuals interested in developing flying skills that will enhance their four-way.

NSL News: Thank you for the interview and the information, John.