Sunday 2000-7-2
    "They're jerks and they piss me off", spit Peter Dvorak in the morning after a resultless walk around the organizer's tents with a piece of scrolled up negative from yesterday in his hand. Yesterday evening he was, you see, brought into a state of intoxication by some pilots evidently were afraid of his possible high placing in the competition, so that the extremely lethargic Peter didn't even report his place of landing and his points for Saturday therefore equalled zero.

    As opposed to yesterday the Starting list was expanded by one Slovenian competitor and by the only competing girl, Lucie Tvrdikova. Ad as became apparent through the course of the day, Lucie had no intention of flying only from the runway to the landing strip. So the total number of competitors settled at 65.




    The weather and its forecast looked ecactly the same as yesterday with a somewhat increased chance of storms and so a large number of pilots once again in the morning made the climb to the Kriska Gora starting ground, up the south slope without using oxygen masks. And because the racers parachutes were brought to the lower station of the cable car considerably earlier today than yesterday, no one had to wait unnecessarily for their bags at the runway.




    The Start window to the 54km long discipline was, following a difficult decision process opened after all at 12:45 and the marker was opened at 13:30 following the photographing of the first turning point. For feaer of increased cloud development and possible storms most pilots started right after the opening of the Start window and at times the runway was somewhat densely packed.




    A masterful feat, with which he inteded to make up for a relatively studentish mistake, was demonstrated by Mirek "Radar" Stehula. After finishing off the first riser he'd headed out onto the course only to realize he'd forgotten to photograph the Start board. Lightning quick he turned back, spiralled down the excess height, landed on the runway, photographed the board and following a new start returned to the race. As was later shown this delay had, in light of the later evolution of the meteorological situation, a meaningful influence on his successful attainment of the goal.

    Far less fortunate was the similarly fortetful Milan Kamenicek who, when attempting to photgraph the first turning point, with suprise realized that his camera had remained lying on the runway. He was also able to return and land successfully on the runway, but by the time he found his camera, the Start window had been closed for an even ten minutes. Bad luck.




    The increasing cloudiness around the starting ground indicated considerably that a storm could come at any minute, and the worried face of the competition director began to look grim as well.




    Around 15:00 the awesome, over-developed cloudiness began to break apart locally, at a cost to the racers in the vanguard of the course. The late-comers flew through the critical area around the town of Preddvor with sufficient time lapse to allow them to continue on successfully on to the other turning points. In the later afternoon the cumulous base rose to just above the very peak of Storzic mountain, which is 132m over the 2000 above sea level.

    Not quite 15 minutes before the closing of the goal the originally delayed Mirek "Radar" Stehula flew over the line and after landing couldn't believe he'd arrived first at the goal.




    Ten minutes later, Kamil Solc appeared above the goal closely folloeed by Dusan Kultan. In attempting to fly past his competitor, Du8sand stepped on the speed so vehemently that he got his canopy into a massive frontstall and suddenly had his hands full. But despite this he still flew over the goal half a minute sooner.

    Barely 2 minutes before the closing of the goal, Marcel Konecny flew in at a low altitude with a wild clattering and that was all for the day. Only four competitors managed to reach the goal an din the overall placing they improved their positions markedly.

    In the evening, following the mandatory watching ofa football game, the guitars were pulled out and Czech bleating echoed throughout the camp on the Lesce airfield late into the night.