posted Sep 20th, 2009 - Perris Fury's bad luck in Texas comes along with a great meet for Sebastian Tempest at the September meet of the Florida Skydiving League.

Tempest is attending the team's 4th meet of the 2009 season and had a similar break as the team from California after a busy start this year. Tempest competed in March, April and May before coming back this weekend.

Much has happened in the meantime, and most importantly the scoring average (13.3 - 13.8 - 13.8 - 18.5 after eight rounds) has gone up significantly.

Several short term cancelations in Florida made the September meet the smallest one of the FSL 2009 season. This offered the NSL News the opportunity to take even more time for the teams on competition site in Sebastian, Sebastian Tempest and Rookie Class team DiZaster.

The NSL News met with the Tempest members at the end of the 6-round day at Skydive Sebastian for a live NSL Talk. Chris Ash (Tail), Gilles Dutrisac (Point), Thiago Murradas (Center Outside), Kris Peterson (Center Inside) and videographer Patrick Walker explained for the NSL News what has brought the team from the 13+ level to the current 18+ performance.

The Tempest members said that Thomas Hughes' coaching concept of slowing the pace down for a long stretch at the beginning of the season paid back when the team eventually picked up the pace.

New member Gilles Dutrisac mentioned that it was especially beneficial for him, as he had to learn the AAA Class dive pool this year. He trained and competed with AA Class team FSC Wind Damaged in the past years and finished the 2008 season at a 12.1 average level in the AA Class. It took him less than a year to move up to the 18+ level in the AAA Class with Tempest.

It is a very interesting coincidence that their SDC Rhythm XP friends from the Midwest Skydiving League are in a very similar situation with their new Center Inside Rob Radez, who also competed in the AA Class until last year.

The NSL News has covered Rhythm's pursuit of the Mass Defiance "amateur" record average extensively. It seems as if it is not only the Midwest team that might be able to challenge this benchmark this year at the USPA Nationals 2009. The Sebastian Tempest videos of the first six rounds this weekend show that there is probably another team with the potential to do the same.

Both teams will probably compete in the Open Class this year. Rhythm has no other choice, while Tempest is theoretically eligible to compete and win medals in USPA's Advanced Class. However, both teams have the 20-average mark as their goals, and they will look at each other's results carefully.

Then, they will eventually join forces and compete together in 8-way. The 4-way winner can pick the team name for the 8-way event. Tempest 1x2 (Tempest won by 2) competed for Tempest/Rhythm in 8-way last year. This year, it seemed so far as if Rhythm would win the right to pick the 8-way name. This does not seem so sure any longer...

USPA Nationals 2009 - AAA/Advanced Class
Who will break the Mass Defiance "amateur record" of 19.3 average?	SDC Rhythm XP Sebastian Tempest Spaceland Blue Others
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