The task committee called a 90 kilometer task, 20 kilometers longer than the
first task. But the winds were forecasted to be stronger than the light to no
winds from Sunday. The winds turned out to be northwest at 7 to 9 mph. The task
set us way to the east so we had a long slog coming back to the Francisco
Grande.

The Monday task:

Bobby Bailey drug me into the air and I pinned off at 1,400' AGL to start
climbing at an average of 370 fpm to 5,500'. The next thermal took me to 7,100'
so the day was already better lift wise than Sunday.

Unfortunately, the lift after that wasn't nearly as nice and I wasn't able to
get quite as high before the start opened at 1:40. Probably twenty pilot started
together at around 6,000'.

Even though it was off the course line we headed east southeast toward the Casa
Grande mountains and catching the south end of them climbed to back to 6,000' at
330 fpm. There was plenty of company. I would fly the whole flight with Glen
Volk although he wasn't that aware of it as I almost always seemed to be just
above him.

It was south southeast to the Sunlan turnpoint and I glided fifteen kilometers
chasing a dust devil that was pretty weak after I found it, but it got me and a
few others around to 5,600'.

The next turnpoint was Newman Peak, the mountains to the east. We had to go
through a lot of flatlands and then be able to get there high enough so that we
didn't have to climb up from the bottom of the mountains. We took some weak lift
in a couple of thermals just to get high enough to feel comfortable heading into
the mountain side.

A good number of pilots were in front of us and staying further to the north of
our line. It would appear that a few of them went down before Neman Peak
including Jonny Durand and John Simon. As I watched them out in front I shaded
off to the south just taking a different line as it seemed that they weren't
finding anything.

There was lift at the mountain but not great lift, but no turbulent either. The
first thermal below the peak was only 230 fpm, but the one above it was only 340
fpm to 6,200'. I was hoping for a much stronger thermal and much higher. This is
not why we go to the mountains here in the Santa Cruz Flats Race.

Now we had to turn and face the wind. We (Glen and I) glided for 9 kilometers
with nothing to show for it. I spotted a pilot turning to our south and came in
under him at 1,000' AGL. Glen came in lower.

We spent twenty minutes in 190 fpm climbing back to 6,000' and drifting back to
the southeast. We were way south of the course line.

The next thermal, which started just south of where we started the previous
thermal, was much improved at 400 fpm. It was almost 3:40 PM, two hours since
the start gate opened and we were finally getting back on track. We climbed to
over 7,000'.

The next thermal at 500 fpm got us again to 7,000' We were just west of Arizona
city. I saw 800 fpm (20 second average) briefly on the Flytec 6060. It was
almost 4 PM.

The idea was to get high enough to make it over the Casa Grande mountain and
then climb there and get to goal. I worked 360 fpm to 6,000' 8 kilometers from
the mountains and felt I had enough to make it. Unfortunately Glen missed out
and wasn't able to join Kevin Carter, Felix Cantesanu and I as we headed for the
mountains.

We got there with about 3,000' at about 4:15 PM but there was little to no lift
there, even though we were at the top of the ridge. We worked broken lift for a
while but it never got going. We landed just west of the mountains.

Dustin and Larry came over us half an hour later about 2,000' over the top of
the ridge. Dustin made goal.

Seven pilots made goal.

Dusties around here appear to be very weak: