La Muela F3F 2011 Eurotour

I'm just coming back from a week in Spain, with some tourism in Valencia (very nice city), and ended by the F3F open of La Muela. Despite we were end of April, expecting good temperature and sunshine, weather forecasts were not encouraging at all, since a depression was centered on Madrid, with rain and low wind and temperatures as concequences.
Friday, after few rain showers, we have been able to complete 5 rounds in very changing conditions, especially in round 3 and 5, interrupted in the middle by rain, before to restart after a 20 minutes break. I payed cash these 2 interruptions as I was the next pilot to fly, and each time got very little wind compared to the first half. At round five, I was even ready to start under few rain drops but the CD decided to stop at that moment, too bad for me !
This cuts the pilots in 2 groups: the one who flew before the rain with time between 41 to 50s, and the second group flying after the rain with time between 55 to 75s. You can easily imagine the impact on 5 rounds ranking, even with one discard !
On saturday, the low and variable wind didn't allow to do additional rounds, so people enjoyed the slope with free flying with foamies, HLG and electrogliders.
The low number of rounds and rounds interruptions explain partially the ranking with good pilots finishing far from the top positions with very low points for Eurotour classification. Despite this cruel aspect of F3F, the pilots on the podium clearly deserve their position: Andreas flew very consistently all 5 rounds with his Alliaj HM, followed by Gerardo with his Freestyler and Andoni at the 3rd place.
On the organisation side, I noticed great improvements compared to previous years: First of all, the timing system worked flawlessly . No more voice in the mother tongue of the pilot, but very clear beeps during the count down or the last lap, etc ...
Round results were displayed very quickly after the end of the round. Other noticeable improvement is the organizer determination to fly the most possible: the course was ready at 9am when we arrived, and they were ready to fly late on saturday if condition permitted it, this is great !
Even if this is my worse result at La Muela Open, I will definitively come back because of the place, the people, and the food !!!
A big thanks to the organisers, including the bases judges who stayed all week end to beep us, and not forgotting the sponsors (MKS, Graupner and some others) who were very generous with us.

See you in 2012.

Below is my photo album. More to come with videos, aerial pictures and aerial video. Stay tuned !

More pictures here: http://www.henryf3f.com/foro/index.php?topic=730.0
and here: http://kevin-newton.blogspot.com/
official website here: http://www.lamuelaf3f.com/

Results Summary - La muela 2011
Overall Results		Nº rounds flown 5
		Discardrs 1
Rank	Competitor	Score
1	FRICKE ANDREAS	3785,17
2	GERARDO PLAZA LOZANO	3610,65
3	ANDONI GORRINOBEASKOA	3567,69
4	SERGIO SANCHEZ CONDE	3544,31
5	PERICOU SEBASTIEN	3531,47
6	LANES PHILIPPE	3517,75
7	ESPEN TORP	3482,71
8	LOMBARDO LAURENT	3479,48
9	MARECHAL ALEXIS	3475,04
10	TIRAND YVES	3469,98
11	ALVARO SILGADO	3455,63
12	JESUS HERRERA BORREGO	3433,35
13	MIGUEL A. GUTIERREZ LECUE	3428,27
14	LEMONNIER THIERRY	3411,47
15	BLUMER RETO	3400,75
16	RONDEL PIERRE	3390,15
17	JOSE JURADO PEREZ	3359,73
18	MICHAEL EVANS	3337,48
19	JORGE MEDINA HERRERO	3307,05
20	ALBERTO PORTELLA DOBLADO	3298,78
21	MANUEL CRUZ	3289,63
22	DANIEL PORTELLA DOBLADO	3280,66
23	ANGEL LOPEZ CABRERA	3273,22
24	COHEN ALLAN	3267,44
25	LANES SEBASTIEN	3263,25
26	JORGE RUGERO GOMAR	3251,31
27	TOMAS EKLUND NORRBY	3201,91
28	IÑAKI ELIZONDO CASADO	3200,29
29	ANDRéS CARDONA VIDAL	3184,80
30	JOSE MANUEL QUINTAS VIDE	3169,46
31	KEVIN NEWTON	3160,07
32	ETCHART MICHEL	3158,83
33	MICHAEL SHELLIM	3119,81
34	FERNANDO MORO	3092,76
35	JAVIER PORTELLA	3092,38
36	CARLES AYMAT	3080,53
37	IGNACIO JOSE TROJAOLA ALVAREZ	2993,39
38	BERTSCHI STEFAN	2989,97
39	JOAO MIGUEL MESTRE	2981,98
40	ALFREDO ARJONA GARCIA	2979,99
41	JUAN PEÑA MARTINEZ	2937,32
42	GIRAUD STEPHANE	2934,10
43	IÑIGO HERRERA MILLAN	2931,83
44	JOSE LUIS ALVAREZ FERNANDEZ	2918,17
45	VICTOR ELDRIDGE	2915,09
46	JOSE RAMON AZCONA CARRASCO	2910,71
47	JUAN CARLOS NOVOA FERNANDEZ	2843,60
48	LAZARO MARTINEZ NIETO	2808,70
49	LORENZO MAYOR DAVILA	2751,05
50	RICARDO CALVO ROJO	2478,58