posted Oct 15th, 2021 - The next USPA Advanced Class leaderboard after the one of 2010, where Doug Barron and Andrew Happick made their next step on their way to a unique USPA triple gold career (Intermediate Class in 2009 - Advanced Class in 2010 - Open Class in 2019), featured another unique situation in the history of USPA Advanced Class competition.

The teams in the first two places on the Advanced Class leaderboard were not eligible for USPA medals, and Spaceland Lite won the competition after a 10-round thriller with Start 4 and Fallout. The race for the USPA gold was so close that Start 4 and Fallout needed an extra round to break their tie in 2nd place after Round 10.

It was not the first time that the two teams on the top of the leaderboard did not win USPA medals. The NSL News featured the Advanced Class winner of 2000, Teiwaz, on May 28th as a part of the Advanced Class history. Two U.S. teams (Barry Jive's Uptown 5 and Optic Nerve) had not eligible foreigners in their lineups, and Teiwaz took the Advanced Class gold medals to Florida.

It was only one U.S. team without eligibility for USPA medals in 2011 (Perris Air Rush). The team on top of the leaderboard was Qatar's national team in 4-way Open, the Tigers. Two teams from Qatar and two teams from Dubai had signed up for USPA's Advanced Class at the beginning of their competition careers, and they found the opposition they were looking for. The Qatar Tigers are now the world's reigning 4-way bronze medalists after the 3rd place at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020.

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USPA Nationals 2011			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Advanced		M,5,13	21,14,22	12,20,D	11,Q,16	O,C,10,K	P,L,19,8	18,6,2	15,9,G	7,F,17	A,B,N,J,3	H,1,E,4	Total	Avg
G	Qatar Tigers	QA	13	13	12	14	14	13	12	15	18	16	-	140	14.0
G	Perris Air Rush	US	13	11	12	12	14	15	12	14	16	17	-	136	13.6
1	Spaceland Lite	US	14	12	11	11	14	12	13	14	16	14	-	131	13.1
2	Start 4	US	13	11	10	12	12	13	13	15	15	16	14	130	13.0
3	Fallout	US	12	11	10	14	13	14	11	13	16	16	12	130	13.0
G	Qatar Falcons	QA	12	8	11	13	14	14	11	15	16	16	-	130	13.0
G	Dubai Red	AE	14	9	10	11	13	13	12	15	14	15	-	126	12.6
4	Spaceland Havoc	US	13	9	11	11	12	12	11	10	12	16	-	117	11.7
5	Dallas En Fuego	US	12	9	7	12	13	13	11	11	14	13	-	115	11.5
6	Spaceland Mamba	US	13	11	6	12	13	10	10	12	11	14	-	112	11.2
7	CSC Syndicate	US	10	9	8	9	13	13	9	9	13	14	-	107	10.7
G	Dubai Gold	AE	11	9	8	10	11	9	11	11	12	13	-	105	10.5
8	Old Greg	US	10	11	7	13	8	12	11	12	9	10	-	103	10.3
9	Monkey Business	US	8	9	5	10	9	9	8	9	11	11	-	89	8.9
10	Mighty Merkins	US	10	8	6	9	7	7	7	9	11	11	-	85	8.5
11	Slice of Life	US	9	7	7	8	9	9	9	10	10	6	-	84	8.4
12	Bad Wolf	US	7	7	8	9	6	7	7	7	11	11	-	80	8.0
13	Creeped Out	US	9	7	5	8	8	8	5	8	9	11	-	78	7.8
14	Sunshine and Buttercups	US	6	7	6	6	3	7	7	7	8	9	-	66	6.6

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Spaceland Lite was one of the many teams from Texas who have won USPA medals at the national championships. Katrina and Devin Shows, Bill Green and Richard Rothery, launched the team project in 2009, with Val Rudaon camera. They placed 7th on USPA's Advanced Class leaderboard when the Furies won in 2009.

Spaceland Lite, then with new member Christy West, missed Advanced Class bronze medals by one single point a year later. The same lineup, with Cory Kossan on camera, finally won their USPA gold medals in 2011, this time with a 1-point advantage at the end.

Katrina Shows later joined XPG4 in 4-way Women, who won FAI bronze medals at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019 with a 26.2 average. Christy West, her Spaceland Lite team mate of 2010 - 2015, joined Aviatrixx in 2019 and missed her own bronze medal in 4-way Women at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 only due to very unfortunate circumstances. Spaceland Lite videographer Cory Kossan was filming Aviatrixx at the world meet.

Not only Katrina Shows and Christy West continued after winning USPA Advanced Class gold medals in 2011. Almost the complete lineup moved up onto the 4-way Open Class leaderboard a year later. Only Richard Rothery had to be replaced, and Joseph Wood took his slot.

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USPA Nationals 2019			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		11		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Class		7,C,H,P		J,21,20		O,3,11		B,2,K,E		8,Q,10		15,D,F,12		N,L,M,14		6,1,9		A,18,13		G,4,5		17,16,22		Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	45	-1	24		27		37		21		25		34		25	-1	26	-1	25	-4	-		289	28.9
2	SDC Rhythm XP	US	41		22		21	-1	33		21		23		27		25		24		25		21	-1	262	26.2
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	40	-1	24		22	-2	32		19	-2	24		29		25		21	-2	26	-1	20	-2	262	26.2
4	Defiance	US	30	-1	21		15	-4	28		16		19		22	-3	21		18	-1	18	-1	-		208	20.8
5	Ranch 2nd Generation	US	26		19		19		24	-2	16	-1	17	-1	24		18	-1	19		19		-		201	20.1
6	Kinetix	AU	26		18		17		22		13	-1	17		18	-1	17		17		17		-		182	18.2
7	Lite XP	US	24	-1	17		17		22		15		17		20	-2	16	-1	14		17		-		179	17.9
8	No Name	US	22	-4	17		14		19	-2	12	-2	13		14	-3	15		14		16		-		156	15.6
9	Aviatrixx	US	21		14		13	-1	18	-1	12	-2	15		17	-1	14	-1	12		14		-		150	15.0
10	Perris Force	US	20		13	-1	14		18		11	-1	11		18	-1	13	-1	12		12	-1	-		142	14.2

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Lite XP and Aviatrixx at the USPA Nationals 2019

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The new Spaceland Lite lineup attended three of the four Texas Skydiving League meets in 2012 before competing for the first time in 4-way Open at the USPA Nationals. They finished with a new 13.9 team record average on the 4-way Open leaderboard, together with four other former Advanced Class champions (SDC Rhythm XP, Mass Defiance, Carolina Turbo XP, Furies).

The same lineup continued in 2013 and 2014 before Dave Grabowski joined Spaceland Lite and replaced Joseph Wood in 2015. SDC Rhythm XP had become the first USPA Advanced Class champion team winning USPA medals in 4-way Open in 2012, and Spaceland Lite were one of the many teams who simply enjoy 4-way competition on the same leaderboard and at the same event with some of the best teams in the world.

Dave Grabowski's former Fallout and Misfits team mate Kim Hollander followed him a year later and joined Katrina and Devon Shows in the Spaceland Lite lineup for two years (2015 - 2016). Devon Shows discontinued in 2017, and Andre Van Heerden became the newest Spaceland Lite member.

Katrina Shows, Kim Hollander, Dave Grabowski and Andre Van Heerden spent three years together (2017 - 2019), still with Cory Kossan on camera. They lifted the Spaceland Lite level to a 17.9 average at the USPA Nationals 2019 and then went into corona crisis hibernation together with most other 4-way teams in the world. There were no USPA Nationals in 2020, and it will be interesting to see how the Spaceland Lite members and USPA Advanced Class champions of 2011 will reappear this year. Andre Van Heerden, former member of 2017 - 2019, has joined Vega XP, as the NSL News reported on 11 September 2020. Christy West competed with Aviatrixx this year, and Katrina Shows was helping the U.S. 4-way Women team on camera and as substitute/alternate, together with Cory Kossan.