posted Aug 17th, 2017 - The USPA Nationals 2017 are scheduled for the end of September, and the US and guest teams are in their final preparations for the event. The NSL News mentioned earlier that NMP PCH HayaBusa will compete in Perris, together with their 8-way partners ISR FireFlash.

This means that the Golden Knights will not only have their annual meeting with Arizona Airspeed's flexible 8-way lineup of different generations. The Belgian Fly-In Machine 44 will also compete with the US Army team for the second time this year, after winning the bronze medals at the FAI World Cup 2017.

Many teams from Texas have been competing at the national championships year after year, and there has been hardly an event when any of the teams in the Texas delegation has not won a set of USPA medals. Dallas 350 and Spaceland Lite are two of the team names that are well known by now after winning gold medals in the Advanced Class and continuing in the Open Class.

Skydive Spaceland-Houston is offering the teams who plan to travel to California in September an opportunity to test their performance level under meet conditions this weekend at the Pre-Nationals 2017. Former Spaceland Lite member Christy West and former Dallas 350 member Scott Latinis are organizing the event, which is open for guest teams, too.

Pre-Nationals 2017		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way AAA/Open/Advanced	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
-	Christy's Love Slaves	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rank	4-way AA/Intermediate	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
-	Spaceland Toxic Heveh	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	Dallas InterSpeediate	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	Babes on our Bellies (BOOBs)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rank	8-way AAA/Open	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
-	French 8-way Team	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	Medal Detectors	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rank	8-way AA/Intermediate	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
-	Dallas InterSpeediate	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Christy West and Scott Latinis are planning to establish the event as the same annual meet test before the USPA Nationals. They offer 4-way and 8-way competition, as the pre-leaderboard is showing.

The field of teams at Skydive Spaceland-Houston includes several teams with a scoring history. Christy’s Love Slaves competed earlier this year at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2017 and are now going outdoors.

All five team members (Rich Delgado, Ian Pedowitz, Jack Ronalter, LJ Wobker, with Brian Festi on camera) are also in the French 8-way lineup.

The French 8-way team just competed at the FAI World Cup in Germany and has not quickly traveled to Houston.

Team member Louis French is behind the team name, which also appeared in 3rd place on the 8-way Advanced Class leaderboard at the USPA Nationals 2016. Doug Feick, Paul Neely and player coach Kirk Verner complete the 8-way lineup.

Christy West and Scott Latinis are guiding a second 8-way team in the same category, the Medal Detectors.

Texas Shootout 2017		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total	Avg
Rank	AA/Intermediate Class	F,A,C,9	18,15	L,2,B	1,8	P,Q,6	19,N,M	7,H,4	Total	Avg
1	Babes on our Bellies (BOOBs)	16	7	10	9	11	11	-	64	10.7
2	Spaceland Toxic	14	6	7	7	12	12	10	68	9.7
3	SPX Toxic Heveh	10	6	9	8	13	12	9	67	9.6
Rank	Rookie	F,A,C	B,M,H	L,G,O	D,K,J	P,Q,E	N,A,B	H,C,M	Total	Avg
1	Last Minute FOG	8	9	2	6	6	6	-	37	6.2
2	Dixx 'n' Chixx	2	5	1	1	6	6	-	21	3.5

There is also a new 8-way Intermediate Class team registered, Dallas InterSpeediate. Team members Lacey Breaux, Zach Breaux and Genifer Oliver have been scoring at several Indoor Cloud League events for iFLY Dallas and are now doubling the size of the 4-way lineups.

Lacey Breaux, Zach Breaux and Genifer Oliver are also competing in 4-way Intermediate, together with player coach Scott Latinis and Peter Kwon on camera.

There they will be facing two more experienced teams, who both competed earlier this year at the Texas Shootout. The Babes on our Bellies (BOOBs) have grown out of the Indoor Cloud League community in Texas, as well, and they won the 4-way Intermediate Class competition in July.

Toxic Heveh were tied with Spaceland Toxic in 2nd place at the same event and lost by a point in the extra round.

The teams in Texas will compete on the same weekend of this year's UK Nationals, and a few other meets are taking place in the USA (Northwest, Florida, Carolina). The NSL News will try to update the leaderboards as soon as possible.