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Hello to everybody from Slovenia!

Previous week we had FAI 2 comp in Soca valley called Serialcup 2012. There was place for 110 entrants and comp was actually full more then 1 month before it started. We had some great flying days week before competition, but on weekend, just before comp started, cold front was passing us with some heavy rain on sunday. We were a bit scleptical how it will be with weather, but forecast showed actually great flying in at least first 4 days of week. Like that we would have bribed someone deciding about weather, first task on monday offered us one of the best flying days in 2012 season. Since i am still flying Triton X i couldnt participate on race, so my friend made me a favour and borrowed me his Mentor 2, which i flew only once on team meeting in Fiss! Tomo thanx again ;) I was really happy because i also met our new team member Jessica who came to put her piece of Nova spirit in this race! Jess U rock, she is the girl u all have to meet! :)

Competitors were all around the world, Lithuanians had their own classifications for nationals, some hungarians with our friend Peter Simonics, polish, ukrainians, germans, czechs, many slovenian pilots including Misty Dule and Brigita who was not flying this time ;) …. so it seemed already on the begining it will be a great comp!

On monday we had first task: cloudbase 2400m, weak local winds – a bit stronger W wind on stol where we had to fly because of turnpoint Podbela. After 5 min waiting for start marker i already felt like home flying Mentor2… it is such a fun to fly it after beeing already some time on Triton X. :) All race was more or less in the valley, we were flying some higher mountains like Krn, Krasji vrh and Polovnik, so we were racing on the ridge quite often. Mentor 2 on full speed is incredibly solid, i was gaining time in comparison with others because condisions were quite strong and they were afraid pushing a lot of speedbar. I remember two polish guys in goal that did not believe this is mentor, they were so impressed how good it is flying. I finished first task 1st in Sport class and 1st in Fun class… i was really satisfied with flying that days and everything went smooth except small stuck at Podbela waypoint for some minutes. Here is track from 1sr task:

http://xcglobe.com/olc/index.php/catalog?nof=1#si&flights&1090790&map

On tuesday bit more of W and SW was predicted, what was obvious already on start. Task comitee made task back in the moutains which was a bit strange at the beginning, but in the end we only had some stronger W wind in central valley which caused big problems if you were low, and very nice conditions in back of the mountains with almost no wind. I made 2 mistakes here, one already on start marker and second one on transmission to north ridge. That costed me some minutes and i lost my lead in Sports class against polish competitor on EN C wing.

Tracklog task 2:

http://xcglobe.com/olc/index.php/catalog?nof=1#si&flights&1091612&map

Wednesday was quite windy day. We changed takeoof to Kobariski stol because of predicted E wind which was strong all day. We were waiting on takeoff for some hours but later the task was cancelled. Many people still flew and some made some nice flights late afternoon.

Thursday was obvious it is final day since bad weather with bora wind was predicted for friday. i already made my decision that have to beat sport class leader for the 60 pts which was the difference. My goal was clear, i want to win both classes on Mentor 2 (fun and sport)! Task comitee made great task with 131km, although 2 WPTs had radius of 15km, so we had to choose if we fly back in the mountains or we fly more out in the valley. I did a great start and was actually leading more then half of a race… passing Enzos and some other EN D wings on the ridge… i was flying full speed all time except when thermalling. It went really good untill my speed pushing didnt cost me not jumping over the ridge of Krn, so i had to go around the edge to reach back ridge. It costed me around 10minutes, but it was still more then enough to win sport class overall and make a huge difference in fun class scoring.

In the begining of comp i was hoping i will get Factor 2 for the race, but now i must be satisfied i was flying Mentor 2! It feels really nice to win on EN B glider, so we proved Mentor 2 is not only best XC machine but can do great job also on comps! I can only imagine what would happen if Triton 2 would be above me :P

Have a nice flying and CU on team meeting of course!

Results:

http://www.serialcup.com/content/final-results-serial-cup-2012

Ewa made some great photos of whole comp from air, check this link:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3795457640642.2143750.1103248179&type=1

Best regards,

Simon Konavec

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