posted Sep 5th, 2005 - The competition in Perris is in full swing on Monday morning. The opening briefing and competition draw for the 4-way event took place on time at 6:00 pm, and meet director Scott Smith had the great pleasure to announce a new record number of participation in 4-way.

The number of 4-way teams in the country are still on an upswing with a total of 80 teams competing at this year's USPA Nationals. Most of the team names are already familiar after competing at NSL events throughout the regular season and the playoffs, several additional teams were just formed for the event in Perris.

The AA/Intermediate Class has the largest participation with 43 teams. The AAA Class, which includes the Open and the Advanced Class at the USPA Nationals, combines for a total of 37 teams, 19 in the Advanced Class and 18 in the Open Class. 14 teams have guest competitors in the line-up and are not eligible for USPA medals, including Element Perris.

Two all-female teams compete for the qualification as the US national team for the world meet in 2006, Perris Synchronicity and Fastrax Select. The NSL News collected already many photos and stories of Fastrax Select throughout the 2005 season, while the reigning US national team did not attend any meets this year and did not make many NSL News stories. However, the NSL News finally found the team in Perris and managed to take the first Synchronicity photo of the 2005 season.

Meet director Scott Smith announced the schedule for the first competition day during the briefing and did not hesitate to call the first teams to the planes at 6:30 am on Monday morning. The record number of teams will require an efficient use of all rescources in Perris, including planes, pilots, judges and supporting staff.

The AA Class teams will complete the first two of six planned rounds early in the morning, the AAA Class teams have a later start expected around 8:30 am. Scott Smith explained that this will give the AA Class teams and competitors the chance to be done earlier and allow them to watch the exciting AAA Class competition.

As usual, the teams went to work right after the team briefing. The AAA Class competition draw is not on the fast side, as round eleven shows, a sequence of only Random Formations (O-G-B-L-Q). 21 of the 22 blocks can be found in the first ten rounds, which makes it a more technical draw. However, the fast sequence waits for the jump-off in the AAA Class, and there is a very good chance that the most exciting situation might happen with the six top contender so close to each other.

The NSL News will now focus on capturing as many competition jumps from Omniskore's DZ-TV as possible and upload them for the NSL audience. The live interviews have become a popular feature, as well, and the NSL News will try to get teams and competitors in front of the camera more often.

By the way:

To the NSL News' left in the photo is some guy who runs Omniskore, forgot his name right now. Ted, Tod? No, Tim! Yeah, that Wagner guy. Has some pretty good nationals coverage going on over HERE. Stay tuned.