Monarca Open Jan 11

Jan 11 tracklog.
Monarca results.

Another perfect Valle day with light winds, high base 3400m, and an epic convergence line on the other side of the Mesa.  Today's task was fairly short, ~70km, of back-n-forth across the Mesa and towards the Butterflies ridge.  The climbs were fast, and once under the convergence it was speedbar all the way to the ridge, a bit of climbing, and then speedbar back to the Mesa.

Two possible ways to tag the 3 Kings TP...either heading back to the Wall and tagging it from the SW, or stay on the St. Augustine/Escalaria side and tag it from the NE.  I chose the Wall side so I could approach 3 Kings from upwind, rather than the possible sink downwind of Maguey.  Beamed up to 3200m after tagging it and then I knew I had the ESS and goal on glide, so I barred it all the way over the lake, neck and neck with 2 other gliders and it was butter smooth!

60 pilots in by goal close, and I made it in 2:18 (the leaders were 1:51) which gave me 22nd place for the day and back to 16th overall.  Lots of action in the LZ as the packup kids were out in full force and the TV news crews were filming the action and interviewing pilots.

Tomorrow is the final day and hopefully I can keep it together one last time!  So far the racing has been really fun, especially since I can now keep up with more pilots and exploit the local terrain more fully, pushing into wind and staying in the convergence are now so much easier!

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