posted Apr 6th, 2007 - The NSL News office has completed the move from DeLand to Bedford for the weekend, and today's story was posted from the World Challenge 2007 event site at the Bodyflight wind tunnel.

The first story brings breaking news and supporting evidence. Team Fastrax has joined the field of world-class teams in Bedford, which was a surprise for the NSL News and its audience. The Fastrax members did not mention at the Shamrock Showdown that the World Challenge 2007 was on the team's schedule.

In fact, the NSL News mentioned several times that Airspeed Odyssey would be in the spotlight once again and had no knowledge that Team Fastrax would compete two weeks after the last meet in DeLand, as well. The Airspeed members were just as surprised as the NSL News was when Thomas Hughes all of a sudden appeared at the Bodyflight entrance.

The NSL News did not let Thomas Hughes get away without an explanation, and the short conversation can be viewed by clicking here. The rest of the team was spotted a little bit later, as well.

Team Fastrax competing in Bedford makes the 4-way event of the wind tunnel competition even more exciting. The race for the $5,000 for the 1st place might not be dominated by Airspeed Odyssey only, the defending champion of 2006.

Actually, there are a few other teams that will probably give Airspeed Odyssey and Team Fastrax a serious competition for the 1st place and the whole jackpot of £10,000 in the 4-way event.

22 teams are registered for the 4-way competition at the moment. Registration will be closed tomorrow morning, right before the competition draw at 9:30 am. The first round will be started at 1:15 pm on Saturday.

Thomas Hughes will be missing the re-union of his former British national 4-way team XL since Team Fastrax decided to compete in Bedford. Pete Allum, Steve Hamilton and John McIver fill the open slot with former Airspeed Odyssey member Brian Johnson and will surely be competitive. Steve Hamilton and John McIver call the Bodyflight tunnel their home and know it better than anybody else, which makes this a very promising line-up.

The most serious other contenders for the money slots (£5,000 - £3,000 - £1,500 - £500) will be the Russian Sky Panthers, Hayabusa Defence from Belgium and the French line-up Maubeuge Aerokart. Team Elan, with three former Airkix world champions in FAI's female 4-way category, might be an underdog in this field of top teams.

The Russian Sky Panthers are competing with exactly the same line-up as in 2006, which guarantees tough competition for the US teams on the very top of the leaderboard. The World Challenge 2007 will also show how far Hayabusa Defence with the new Center Inside, Luc Verstrepen, has come this year.

The French line-up for the tunnel competition consists of two reigning 8-way world champions, Emmanuel Sarrazin and Clement Martin St. Leon, who have two Aerokart tunnel experts and B-Team members in their line-up. They compete for their home tunnel in Paris against the Bodyflight experts in Bedford.

The tunnel was very busy today since several teams used the Friday for training and to get familiar with the competition rules. The two doors of the tunnel serve as the starting line. The working time of 35 seconds begins when the team members enter the flying chamber.