The task committee wouldn't call a task given the forecast of a
50% chance of rain, radar images showing approaching storms, and what happened
the day before.

It looked later like we might have been able to get a smaller task in launching
around 2:00 PM.

Attila has won the Big Spring Nationals once again. He's come to fly at Big
Spring four times and won every time. He flies well in Forbes-like conditions.
He pushes hard.

My results as the second placing pilot really highlights the prominent role that
luck plays in a hang gliding competition. Looking at the scores of the top few
finishers in the open class you can see that they are quite closely spaced after
Attila:

https://airtribune.com/2018-big-spring-national-series/results

Photo by Audray Luck

Any one of the pilots in second through fifth place could have been in second
place. Robin and Rudy were tied before all the results were calculated.

There were many other opportunities for both good and bad luck as well as
tactical errors.

I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to take the first
start clock on Monday, the first task, and get way out ahead of other pilots. It
was my sixth thermal inside the start cylinder and while I worked to stay in the
start cylinder against the strong south wind it just worked out that I was
approaching the north edge of the start cylinder just as I topped out in the
best thermal so far. So I got a great start which really helps the morale. Being
in front really helps also as I'm not trying to catch anyone.

I was able to stay in front by flying as fast as possible and luckily finding
good lift. I only got a little bit low at two points on the first leg, but there
were plenty of cu's to indicate thermals and they worked for me.

I made a tactical error after getting the turnpoint by not heading due east even
though I thought I was. That caused me to not make goal as I was pushed too far
down wind. I didn't take the strong south wind as seriously as I should have and
got low very quickly. The bad luck for Rudy which helped me was that he didn't
make goal that day and behind me in points (although slightly closer to goal). I
was eighth for the day with good leading points.

On the second task I was fortunate to be able to recover from not being able to
get good starts at the first and second clocks by finding a strong thermal under
a cu that I spotted to the east, which is where I really wanted to be upwind.
I was able to find strong thermals when down three times below 2,000' AGL and
then work a strong thermal before the last turnpoint to 10,800' which allowed me
to pass Larry Bunner who started out at the second start clock.

Strong lift allowed me to fly fast and get up quickly from lower altitudes. I
was again eighth for the day. The bad luck was that Bruce, Zac and Glen did not
make goal and that eighteen pilots did, drastically reducing the total distance
points available and greatly upping the value of making it to goal.

On the third task I was again able to get where I wanted to start upwind of the
course line in time for a good start. The sky was full of cu's which beckoned
good luck with lots of lift indicators to choose from.

With the tough cross wind legs it was lucky to have great thermal indicators and
I pushed upwind to get to them. I was having a hard time with the last turnpoint
as I had forgotten just how big its radius was. I had not realized that I could
set one of the user fields on my Flytec 6030 to "Distance to Optimized Point,"
so I was confused abut the cross track error being plus 12 km (upwind) but the
waypoint 12 km away. Looking at the map view showed that I was near the edge of
the cylinder and that I would be fine.

Fortunately I drifted right into the cylinder in a thermal and much reduced the
length of the last leg into the strong head wind.

I could see a cu ahead along the last leg and even though I was not willing to
go with the pilot just ahead of me, who turned out to be Attila, I was able to
get plenty of lift that got me to goal high. I am very wary of final gliding
into a strong head wind. Many pilots landed just short on that day. A shelf of
cirrus clouds came over just after I landed and cut down the lift. Larry landed
short. I was fifth that day.

Bad luck caught Larry just short of goal. In addition, Robin and Glen landed
short. Derrick Turner landed short on the first day far back enough that two
goal landings didn't help enough. Bruce landed way short.

The final stroke of luck was the small number of days for the competition, only
three tasks. Therefore the law of large numbers did not have the opportunity to
play out,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers.