Adelles Belles 2010: Race day 4

First of all, you're probably wondering about the scoring now that we finished. Well, what happens is that on Friday (today) the judges identify the top 12 or 13 planes and call them to tell them the planes will be impounded for re-inspection the following day. Then, on Saturday, each team in the race discusses their scores against handicap in detail with the scorers, and signs off on the final scores. Each score is determined by calculating distance-seconds for each leg, and ending up with the number of knots over (or under) handicap for each leg, and for the race in total. We don't find out until Sunday how the teams placed. But we do know that the judges didn't call us yet, so we likely didn't make top ten.

The arrival deadline for the race is 5pm today (Friday). About 30 teams arrived yesterday, with the remaining 20 or so arriving today. Anecdotally, we believe there were two teams out of 51 who did not make it to the arrival deadline - one was stuck in Tuscaloosa with an engine problem that couldn't be fixed on time, and one arrived 10 minutes after the deadline due to similar issues. Normally on race day 4 we'd still be racing, but this year we finished already, so it was a free day! Alison spent the morning in intensive spa therapy, and feels like a new woman; then met Linda and Barbara S at the airport and took them for lunch and a walk around Frederick. Linda and Barbara S spent the morning flying Laurie Zaleski back to Hammonton NJ to pick up her own plane. Mary spent the entire day helping meet, greet and transport the 20 or so teams who arrived during the day.

In the evening, we all converged at the Meltdown reception in hangar 18 at Frederick, which was awesome - barbecue food, a band, helicopter lessons, art, and good company. We drove back to the hotel for a further hour at the bar, and finally turned in for the night.