CD's Report
It's usually a pleasure to drive this particular show each year, and
2003 will surely go down as one of the better ones.... although with not
quite the booming entry of previous years, the queue of those vying for
these two prestigious crowns was every bit as keen as usual and the
weather this time did allow us to go the whole distance. On arrival at
0900 on Friday the registration list showed 22 standard and 10
intermediate pilots in expectation of battle to come, and in the event
very few fell victim to the slow moving front the weatherman kindly stuck
across the southern part of the country. At Conington it was certainly
very pleasant, but numerous telephone calls from London and the south-west
left no doubt that some of the arrivals would enjoy quite unfavourable
en-route challenges.
 So
- forward gear was firmly engaged at mid-day, and the Intermediate Known
show hit the road. For some the rain came and went, but perseverance won
the day and by 1700 the Standard Known and Intermediate Free had all been
put to bed. At this early stage in the standard class Adam Lewis in STUA
was heading off Simon Abbott and Rob Howarth, both the latter poling G-IIIX
as hard as they could, whilst in intermediate at the two-thirds point Tim
Jenkinson - in the same hard working machine - was racing away from
John Dixon in BRZX and Julian Murfitt in good ol' STUA. The standard lot
ground their teeth and sharpened their resolve, whilst at intermediate no
doubt there were some puzzled frowns wondering just how to make up the
gap.
Saturday's weather was just superb, some early
sub-3,000' cumulus bases rising as the morning progressed to be of no
further concern. With the relatively easy rate of sequence completions CD
Nick-B for once relented with the 0700 briefing (some wry smiles there!),
and at 0900 prompt the standard 1st unknown was away preceded by a late
'known' run by Alan Wood playing catch-up following a spot of Pitts style
runway dancing the previous day.... Sterling performances by Rob and Simon
left Alex ruefully licking a sore thumb at standard, whilst a dash more
excellence from Tim consolidated his spot as intermediate man of the
weekend - and 2003 too, as many other intermediate hopefuls know only too
well.
Alan Cassidy ran a thoroughly high quality judging line,
Jen-B tickled the computer, Diana Britten gave us all a couple of
impromptu free-style wazzes in her '232, and I can only say that it was a
joy for me to see you all have such a good time. Well done to the two new
champions, well tried - but try harder please! to the rest.
Nick Buckenham
Contest Director
|
