posted Oct 27th, 2021 - The 8-way competition at the USPA Nationals 2021 had a very similar start as is happened in 4-way Open, where SDC Rhythm XP took the lead surprisingly in Round 1. The Qatar Falcons, guest team in Eloy with their coach Jeremie Rollett, outscored the Airspeed XP8 world champions, Golden Knights and The Expendables in the meet opener and were still tied with ASXP8 after Round 3.

The run was over when the U.S. top teams got serious and came back to their usual team-specific performance levels. Airspeed XP8 ran away from the guest team, and the Golden Knights passed the Falcons in Round 4. Now the Falcons have to watch out for the third U.S. team, The Expendables, with the most experienced lineup of 4-way and 8-way world champions.

Craig Girard (7), Matt Davidson (6), Eliana Rodriguez (3), Dan BC (3), Kurt Isenbarger (3), Jack Jefferies (3) and Carey Mills (2) combine for a total of 27 world championship titles, and videographer Craig O'Brian (3) brings the total to 30.

Neither Airspeed XP8 nor Golden Knights with their current lineups get anywhere close to this experience level, even though The Expendables have one team mate who does not even have one FAI medal in his collection. It is Arizona Airspeed's current point in the 4-way lineup, Joey Marshall, who is surrounded by eight world champions, including videographer Craig O'Brian.

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8-way Competition at the USPA Nationals on Wednesday

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Joey Marshall is one of the original Ranch 2nd Generation members who caught the NSL News attention with the previous update. His former R2G team mates Jeana Billings and Michelle Karamon were recruited for the Airspeed XP8 lineup, and Chris Kuhlmann took another 8-way slot when Matt Davidson had to step back a few months before the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020.

Joey Marshall did not get a ticket to Russia, and he would also have to watch his R2G team mates defend their USPA 8-way title this week from the outside, after winning the 4-way title with Arizona Airspeed.

However, the former Airspeed and Golden Knights world champions happened to form their own 8-way lineup just for this year's USPA Nationals, following the tradition of Arizona Airspeed's annual 8-way reunion. Result of this year's Airspeed recruiting was probably the most colorful lineup in the history of 8-way competition, and Joey Marshall represents the youngest and latest generation.

Former R2G videographer Kamuran "Sonic" Bayrasli pointed out for the NSL News that Joey Marshall did not meet his current 8-way team mates for the first time. Ranch 2nd Generation attended their first national championship in 2015 at the same place and finished in 16th place on the Intermediate Class leaderboard. It was in Eloy where he and his R2G team mates met some of his world champion team mates in person.

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FAI World Meet 1995			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	US	19	17	16	24	25	21	19	21	17	17	196	19.6
2	France	FR	19	13	18	24	22	21	19	19	19	21	195	19.5
3	Russia	RU	18	14	15	14	18	14	19	15	13	13	153	15.3
4	Australia	AU	15	12	13	18	16	15	15	11	14	14	143	14.3
5	Germany Remscheid	DE	10	10	9	14	13	11	15	12	12	13	119	11.9
6	South Africa	ZA	8	7	7	12	11	11	9	6	9	9	89	8.9
7	Norway	NO	7	7	8	12	9	9	10	6	10	-	78	8.7
7	Great Britain	UK	9	8	8	13	9	7	6	9	9	-	78	8.7
9	Japan	JP	9	7	8	9	10	9	5	10	9	-	76	8.4
10	Sweden	SE	9	7	4	9	9	9	7	8	9	-	71	7.9
11	Switzerland	CH	6	7	3	9	9	8	10	9	-	-	61	7.6
11	Canada	CA	7	5	8	8	7	9	9	8	-	-	61	7.6
13	Denmark	DK	7	7	4	10	6	7	7	8	-	-	56	7.0
14	Italy	IT	6	4	4	7	8	5	8	4	-	-	46	5.8
14	Austria	AT	5	3	5	7	7	7	7	5	-	-	46	5.8
16	Israel	IL	4	3	6	5	5	3	5	5	-	-	36	4.5

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Jack Jefferies and Dan BC competed with Arizona Airspeed's 8-way reunion lineup at the USPA Nationals 2015, and they finished off the day at Skydive Arizona's Bent Prop dropzone bar, together with other world champion celebrities (Chris Talbert, Kirk Verner, John Lemming).

R2G members Brenn Richards, Chris Kuhlmann and Joey Marshall spent some time at the end of the day with the world champions at the very beginning of their career, and he met most of the other Expendables more recently.

However, there is one member of The Expendables who goes even further back in 4-way or 8-way competition than Matt Davidson. Only Craig Girard won his first world championship title with the Golden Knights earlier than Carey Mills, who collected his own 8-way gold medals in 1995 and 1997.

Craig Girard had already three gold medals in his pocket before he left the U.S. Army and Carey Mills started in the next Golden Knights lineup. Expendables' Kurt Isenbarger introduced Carey Mills and his comeback to the NSL News on the first day of 8-way competition. Kurt Isenbarger collected his three FAI gold medals in 2012, 2014 and 2016. The Expendables with Joey Marshall are in USPA bronze medal position shortly behind the Qatar Falcons on Wednesday evening.