posted Oct 31st, 2006 - NSL-TV now continues with the coverage of the September meet of the Southwest Skydiving League. Unfortunately, USPA and Skydive Arizona did not invite the NSL News to provide NSL-TV coverage of the USPA Nationals 2006. However, the videos of the SSL meet feature seven teams that competed at last week's competition in Eloy.

The missing NSL-TV coverage of the USPA Nationals 2006 was mentioned in several messages that commented the NSL News coverage of the event. There is still good news for the audience. Several teams offered to send video footage of the competition to the NSL headquarters, which will be uploaded as soon as the material arrives.

Round six of the SSL meet on the NSL Playoffs 2006 weekend in September features once again the most exciting showdown between Perris Fury and Elsinore Gravity. However, it also presents another competition jump of the bronze medal winner in USPA's Advanced Class competition, Perris Voltage.

John Klinge (Center Inside), Steve Mischo (Tail), Dave Span (Center Outside), Caitie Unkovic (Point) and Lori Thomas (Camera) attended the team's first competition this year in August and posted an 11.2 average in Perris. The Voltage average was already at 11.7 after the six rounds of the September meet in Elsinore.

The Perris team had a slow start at the USPA Nationals 2006 and consistently worked its way up the leaderboard round by round. At the end of the 10-round competition, Voltage was only one single point behind the silver medals with the best average (12.4) of the 2006 season.

The competition between Perris Fury and Elsinore Gravity ended up with another tied round. Elsinore Gravity was a little bit faster this time and almost completed the 22nd scoring point in time (35.06 seconds), while Perris Fury's slower engineering of the first Monopod put the team a few tenths of a second behind (35.26 seconds).

Fury and Gravity decided to break the tied situation after six rounds with a jump-off, and the NSL-TV will feature the additional round later on. One of the biggest questions after the USPA Nationals 2006 has not been answered yet: how was it possible that these two teams were so close to each other in September and so far away from each other in October?

The NSL News story on October 22 answered this question only partially. A closer look at the scoresheets indicates that Gravity was not as far behind as the posted scores and the final standings show.

First of all, Perris Fury had an incredible meet with an outstanding performance. Chris Farina (Inside Center), Christy Frikken (Outside Center), Josh Hall (Point), Uli Steuwe (Tail) and Karen Lewis (Video) increased the September average of 18.6 by 1.5 to a most impressive 19.9 average after the ten rounds in Eloy. It would have been very difficult for Elsinore Gravity to keep up with this much improved performance level.

However, Gravity had to deal with a situation that turned out to be a serious problem in the middle of the competition. Pat Newman, videographer for the Elsinore team throughout the regular 2006 season, was not available in Eloy. John "JC" Colclasure filled in for the meet and was obviously not in synch with the team's exits in several rounds.

Elsinore Gravity was still on the same pace with Perris Fury throughout the first three rounds, similar to the SSL September meet. The first video disaster in round four caused a damage that was irreparable. The lost points, as shown in the graph, only tell the technical part of Gravity story.

There is also an additional psychological aspect of such a situation. It is almost impossible to keep up the motivation and the spirits when disaster hits with such an impact. Lou Ascione (Inside Center), Melanie Curtis (Point), John Hamilton (Outside Center) and Steven Simar (Tail) went from going had to head with both Airspeed line-ups, the Golden Knights and Perris Fury to a very different position on the leaderboard.

The team knew after round four that there would be no chance to make it back up and become again a part of this exciting competition with the other top teams. The next round made it even worse. Such a situation eats up confidence and motivation, and it was no surprise that the pace and performance level still suffered for the remainder of the meet.

The circumstances were very unfortunate for the Elsinore team, and it will probably take a little while for the team members to recover and look forward to the planning of the team's future. As Perris Fury, Elsinore Gravity has been greatly and successfully involved in recruiting and coaching teams in the Southwest Skydiving League area. The NSL News will follow up with information of Gravity's future.