Day 6

Another great day for John with a skillful 2nd place on a day that was dominated by storms. This effort puts John right back in contention which is great to see.

After complaints about no racing tasks the organisers took a chance and set a hard point racing task day on a day with high risk of thunderstorms, which seems to be just about everyday around here. The day was blue right up until launch at 12pm when the CU's started. They developed quickly and those in the know knew what this meant and they all took off early as soon as the gate opened.

It was a 355km task for 15m and about 320km for 18m. The first leg was 180km for 15m and about 150km for 18m. Depending on how quick you started everybody ran into a massive line of thunderstorms about 80 - 100km on track.

I tracked along the front of these storms for a short way with dark rain and lightening on my left until I saw a lighter area which I thought might be a way through. I headed in for a couple of km but a large bolt of lightening dead in front about 1km ahead made me decide this was a bad idea so I turned around  and headed out. This was as close as I got to the turn point.

Brett however, with a much closer turn point headed in to have a go. His last radio call was "I'm surrounded by thunderstorms with no way out". So he landed out somewhere near his turnpoint, which meant a long retrieve for Barbara, Matt and Geoff.

John with much more experience when it comes to storms managed to weave his way around and get the first and second turnpoint before finally running out of options and being forced down by rain.

John's paddock

The Vengabus

John's retrieve car 'The Vengabus' is pretty special. Neither of the front windows work, the aircon doesn't work, 1st gear selects only sometimes and reverse selects rarely.