http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=p421437

Rick Ray writes:

There were 9 deployments in 10 days. Five of these happened on the
practice days leading up to the event. There were 4 deployments during the comp
proper. There was one additional failed attempt to deploy. Fortunately, the
pilot spiraled into the trees and walked away. Amazing miracle! The harness in
that incident was an Impress 3. The pilot couldn't overcome the G forces and
extract the reserve. Something to think about. Out of the 9 deployments, there
was one injury- a badly sprained ankle.

As Jeff rightly pointed out, some of the contributing factors included some
pilots flying gliders above their ability levels in turbulent conditions. On
some of the days during the event, the lift was boisterous- strong thermals with
sharply defined edges. Some of the convergence areas took the unwary by
surprise. One of the pre-event throws involved a pilot encountering a dust devil
above the landing field.

The USHPA Safety director, David Norwood, was there and conducted interviews
with most of the pilots who deployed. He will be writing up the findings and it
will be published in an upcoming USHPA article.

Thomas Keefer writes:

I had my first toss there. I have about 700-800 hours of mostly
mountain flying and am flying an artik 3. I have flown over 100 sites across
Europe and the United States. I'm a P4/T3.

I also more than doubled the number of collapses I had there on my Artik 3 which
I have about 200 hours on - had 3 on the practice day.

My toss was a result of being too deep in Humbug after two failed attempts to
cross it. I had made the crossing twice before in as many days and this was my
first trip to Woodrat. I was in a spot where I made the commitment to toss if I
had gotten a big wack and so after the wing balled up and went past out in front
of me, I threw immediately because I was only about 100m over the ground at that
point.

I did find it interesting that there were so many tosses as well. I think that
the air there is big but I have about 10-15 days over a several seasons in the
Owens and have flown many of the big air sites in Europe and this was by far the
most wacks I have taken. I have not yet ruled out glider line shrinkage which I
intend to measure now that I am back but since it is a traditional 3.5 liner, I
don't suspect that was a factor. My normal sites in San Diego are desert, high
pressure thermic sites so turbulence is not something new.

The only other thing I can speculate on is the complexity of the terrain there.
Coupled with the convergence lines. I spoke to one of the local club officers
about how gnarly the wack I had was over the North side of Humbug and he
indicated that he had had a toss there as well. I knew I was lee siding but this
was much worse than anything I had encountered before. There is a ridge that
sticks out on the west side of the valley there that acts as a collector and
pushes an outflow across the valley there - something I doubt too many would
consider given that it is so far away but it makes sense when you look at the
map.

In any event, the Rat Race was a very well organized event and I had a great
time. I am surely going back to fly woodrat again - I had a blast. I think that
I could have perhaps spent some more time free flying to get to know the place a
bit better rather than jumping in the full race right away.