The first meet of the Florida Canopy Piloting Association took place this past weekend at the Florida Skydiving Center, Lake Wales, FL. 27 competitors showed up - 15 competing in the Amateur class and 12 in the Pro class.
Meet director and league organizer Albert Berchtold was very happy with the event:
"I guess WOW pretty well sum's it up. This was a great kick off to the 2008 swooping season. 18 practice loads were flown on Friday, full of eager competitors wanting to prepare for the meet. I would like to thank the staff at Lake Wales our beautiful judges (and you too Mike), Keith McBeth for his hard work preparing the pond, Peter from Alti-2 for coming out and servicing Neptunes - and all the other very important people who helped make this happen. Jay Moledzki was the event coach and offered swoopers of all levels coaching and guidance that was well received.
The meet finished up around 5:30 PM and DZO Betty Hill bought us all pizza for the awards ceremony!"
Details will be up on the FLCPA website "soon" Albert says, but in the meantime here are the overall standings (place/name/score):
1 Brian McNenney (PRO) 563.26
2 Tom Dellibac (PRO) 519.38
3 Pete Schwartz (AMATEUR) 516.41 $
4 Brian Buechler (PRO) 515.07
5 Jairo Garcia (AMATEUR) 513.55
6 Keith Macbeth (PRO) 504.17
7 Jim Romesburg (AMATEUR) 490.17
8 Albert Berchtold (PRO) 479.21
9 Stu Schoenfeld (PRO) 469.49
10 Derek Boxwell (AMATEUR) 462.14
11 Sergei Fedotov (AMATEUR) 436.52
12 Craig Saucier (PRO) 386.83
13 Don Jaget (AMATEUR) 370.11
14 Mike Shatalov (PRO) 367.74
15 Tyler Lawson (PRO) 364.45
16 Jens Thogersen (PRO) 340.25
17 Eric Miller (AMATEUR) 312.66
18 Joe Silva (AMATEUR) 305.87
19 Ian Drennan (PRO) 300.82
20 Loud Dan McAllister (AMATEUR) 292.07
21 Ben Lowe (AMATEUR) 288.48
22 Greg Clidaras (AMATEUR) 267.56
23 Greg Rau (AMATEUR) 257.88
24 Big Steve Haseman (AMATEUR) 245.69
25 Josh Venning (AMATEUR) 152.53
26 Andre Melan (PRO) 71.80
27 Pia McFarland (AMATEUR) 39.18
In 2008, The FLCPA will offer membership to Pro pilots that are interested in joining the race for an overall FLCPA champion. Congratulations to Brian for taking home the gold - it looks like the
race between Pro and Amateur competitors will be a tight one. The league will track and compile scores after each meet to see who is in the lead.
Next meet is scheduled for March 8th at Skydive Palatka, FL. Complete schedule can be found here. Come on out and cheer on your favorite swooper :)
