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Jeff O'Brien was second for the day and for the meet. Dave Gibson came in third.

With a forecast of south southwest winds up high, and climbs to 17,000' we headed back to Sugar Hill. It was supposed to be 90 degrees on the ground so the hot weather was finally going to return.

There was a reasonable wind at launch when we got up there so it looked like we would have no delays on launch waiting for cycles to come through. The task that was called was an out and return up the west side of the Warner Range to Tague Butte then back to Black Cap above Lakeview then to Hunters Hot Springs Resort, our headquarters and where most of us are camped. It looks like reasonably difficult task.

Jeff and I got off early, about an hour before the Race Start at 2 PM. I climbed up right away in good lift and called Jeff over to the better thermal. We got to 3,000' over launch but the air was quite turbulent and unpleasant. We had a hour to go of this.

I headed way south (5km) into the wind to get away from the hill and hopefully into smoother lift, but while I found strong lift, it was not smooth. I was getting bounced around and not liking it. What I didn't know was that Jeff was also not too happy about the turbulence. Others expressed similar sentiments later after the task was complete.

This unpleasantness continued on and no matter where I went if I found lift I was not enjoying myself. This was taking a toll.

I got down to 2,000' above launch and headed back over to launch, where there were a number of pilots just scraping over launch, while half a dozen were about 2,000' over me further to the north. At eight minutes before the start window opened at 2 PM suddenly I flew into a big fat thermal that was going up at 700 fpm. It was smooth. This was great. Why hadn't this happened before?

This thermal was just the ticket and I took it to 13,000' just as the start window opened. It was still going up well when I turned and headed out to be the first one on the course line. This made no sense of course as I could have stayed in this nice thermal and let other folks get out in front and show me the way.

But by this point I had been traumatized by all the previous turbulence and wasn't thinking clearly, if thinking at all. I ran fast toward the range to the north not worrying about what was ahead, just hoping for better. As I fiddled with my zipper, suddenly it split open on my chest and now I was flying without the extra support of a closed zipper.

I just kept heading up the range waiting for a reasonable thermal, not worried if I landed or not. I was more than happy to land if I didn't find something that I was happy to turn in. All I found was broken lift. I just wasn't looking that hard. I wanted the pain to be over.

I found a nice alfalfa field and put it down. Belinda was right there.

Jeff was low further up in the hills and hanging on. The going was slow and folks were dropping out just behind me. Jeff said he got to Black Cap just at launch level. It was 24 km to the turnpoint.

Just before the turnpoint Jeff got down very low but drifted over some hot rocks that turned into 800 fpm. He was about to land and Belinda was figuring out how to get to him. Bill was just below him on the ground.

He got back up and Zippy was high over his head at the turnpoint. The leg back to Black Cap was into the wind, but Zippy made it high and got into goal ten minutes before Jeff.