Jeff Shapiro writes:

The Xpyr Race is over and it was indeed a grand adventure. We were
in good position at the beginning of Day 3 and a flying error that put me on the
ground early during a great forecast, unable to get back to cloudbase until
later in the day, cost us valuable time and distance. I put myself in a tight
spot but with the amazing help of my team, flew my way out in a series of
flights that put me under storms.

Every step was earned, we worked hard, learned a lot and most importantly, kept
laughing our way down course line. Although we didn’t get as far as we’d hoped
this race, finding ourselves deep in the middle of the Pyrenees 7 days after
running off the beach was an epic place to end our race.

On our last day, we hiked to launch, and as Dustin flew off toward Castejón to a
much earned beer, Alistair Andrews and I flew toward turnpoint 5. It was windy
and I got the feeling we were both psyched to get on the ground at the end of
our flights.

I hiked down to our support rig and Huntley Badger decided to hike the last
evening with me so, with heads down, we went as far North as we could and met
Dustin for high fives and beers.

I must say, it felt a little strange to ride in the van after a week. The X-Pyr
is over but, my motivation to continue learning and to do more competitions like
this one is strong. I’ve got memories from this experience that I couldn’t make
up and as a team, we’re better friends than when we started. I’d say it was a
successful first crack.