posted Feb 6th, 2010 - It has been a while since the NSL News visited Skydive Arizona the last time to cover each year's first meet of the competition season, the traditional annual Valentine's Meet. Actually, the Valentine's Meet 2010 is not the first competition of the new season, as the Dubai Championship was already completed at the beginning of January.

Arizona Airspeed made the trip to Dubai in January and won after another impressive performance. It was the 21st consecutive victory for the current Airspeed lineup (Eliana Rodriguez - Point, Craig Girard - Center Outside, Andy Delk - Center Inside, Mark Kirkby - Tail, Steve Nowak - Camera), which was put together for the 2007 season when Mark Kirkby came back from his engagement with Team Fastrax.

The Valentine's Meet 2007 was the first competition for this lineup, and Airspeed will now try to make the 4th Valentine's Meet the team's 22nd consecutive victory. The NSL News found videos of Airspeed's first competition in February 2007 in the archives. This year, the NSL News will be back to Eloy to report live from the competition site, after a 3-year break.

Airspeed will also try to maintain the 20-points and up scoring streak. The reigning world champions extended the series of consecutive scores higher than 20 points at outdoor meets to 26 rounds in four meets.

The last score below 20 points dates back to March 2009 when Airspeed posted an 18-pointer (2-14-20) at the Shamrock Showdown 2009. The lowest scores ever since were two 20-pointers, the first one at the USPA Nationals 2009 and the second one in Dubai this January.

The competition draws at the Valentine's Meet seem to make it difficult for Airspeed to make it to the 20-point benchmark each round throughout the whole competition. 18-pointers in Round 7 (6-19-15) and Round 10 (21-16-12) were in the way at the 2007 event.

Airspeed missed the 20 three times at the Valentine's Meet 2008. Round 5 (22-18-J) had an 18-pointer on the scoreboard, Round 7 (12-21-C) a 19-pointer, and the score for Round 9 (15-20-8) went back to 18 points.

It was not much better last year. The sequence for Round 7 (6-21-12) stopped the Airspeed scoring after 19 points.

The slowest sequence was waiting in Round 10 (10-1-22), and Airspeed had to accept an 18-pointer on the scoreboard.

The Shamrock Showdown 2009 was the next outdoor competition for Airspeed after the Valentine's Meet 2009, and the world champions had to accept one more score below 20 points in Round 7 (2-14-20) in DeLand. But that was it, and from then on Airspeed mastered all sequences without going below 20 points. The same streak is still going.

The 20-point challenge at the Valentine's Meet will be a great task for Airspeed. The NSL News has no information yet which top teams will challenge the world champions on their home turf this year. However, the 20-point game in itself is already a tough challenge. It will be interesting to see what kind of sequences Meet Director Bryan Burke will have in store this year for the teams in Eloy next weekend.