posted Jul 11th, 2006 - Last weekend's leaderboard is complete. The scores of the national championship in the Netherlands are posted in a separate scoring table since the meet management applied a separate competition draw. The meet began already in the middle of last week and was not synchronized with the NSL/ESL competition draw. The Dutch 4-way fans will provide a meet story later.

This left three scheduled NSL events on last weekend's agenda, and the Colorado Skydiving League competition was completely weathered out. However, the weather in the neighbour state Texas was obviously much better, and two additional teams also competed in the Great Lakes area.

Dallas Thunder with Dave Burton (Point), Ron Hill (Tail), Mike Inabinit (Center Inside), Ryan Smith (Center Outside) and Al Levy (Video) in this year's line-up, has dominated the AAA/Open Class competition in Texas throughout the three neets of the 2006 season so far.

Dallas Thunder's performance level in 2006 is very similar to last year's scores (13.2 - 16.0 - 14.8 - 15.2 - 18.4) when Kelly Fredrickson, Scott Latinis, Lou Massey and Chad Smith competed under the same name. Last year's line-up has continued with the same team members and now competes as team Thunder (16.5 in February - 17.5 in April).

Dallas Thunder was obviously able to recruit a new and strong line-up for the 2006 season (15.5 - 16.8 - 14.0), and both teams are now competing indirectly on a similar scoring level. However, Dallas Thunder and Thunder have not competed on the same weekend yet, which does not allow to compare the results directly.

Dave Burton and TSL Director Ryan Smith competed with Dallas Thunder already in 2004. Ron Hill competed with teams in Florida (Frost, Teiwaz and Phugoid) before he moved to Texas last year. Mike Inabinet is a former member of the Airspeed line-up that won the 8-way gold medals at the World Meet 2004 in Croatia.

The AA/Intermediate Class competion in Texas is much tighter compared to the AAA Class. Last year's Rookie Class winner at the NSL Championship 2005, Team America, skipped the A Class and has won each of the three AA Class meets in Texas so far.

Team America's line-up has changed this year. Angelee Jones, Georges Lezaun, John McDonnell, Johnny Tubbs and Ray Privitt (Camera) competed throughout the 2005 season and at SkyQuest 2005. Only Georges Lezaun and Johnny Tubbs continued, while Ray Privitt is still filming the new Team America.

Christine Bako and Kirk Campbell joined the team for the 2006 season. Christine Bako has AAA Class experiences after training and competing with Christopher Irwin's Katalyst line-ups in Perris in 2004 and joining FSL team Teiwaz for a few meets of the FSL 2005 season.

Last weekend's competition was the toughest one for Team America this year. Dallas Avalanche was already the main TSL challenger in the AA Class at the TSL season opener this year, finishing only three points behind the winner in second place at the TSL meet on April 22.

Dallas Avalanche did not attend the second TSL meet in June but came back strongly last weekend. Both AA Class teams gave each other a race throughout the six rounds of the meet. Team America finished with exactly the same meet average as in April (8.3) after six rounds, and Dallas Avalanche had caught up to exactly the same scoring level.

Both teams were tied in first place after six rounds with 50 points total, and the TSL management sent them back in the air for a jump-off round. Team America won the extra round by one point (9 - 8) and won the first place once again.

The race for the 3rd place was almost as close as it was for the 1st place. Exit Strategy ended up one single point behind "Bend it over, Make it real" after six rounds. Last not least, the two remaining teams of the AA Class field, Dallas Vixen and Dallas Haz Mat, were separated by only three points in the competition for the 5th place.