posted Jun 9th, 2011 - The upcoming meet weekend will be an exciting one. Arizona Airspeed is at Skydive Chicago to defend the Midway Battle title that the 2010 lineup won with a 26.4 average after five rounds. It was only a small 5-team field last year, which was still very competitive with top contenders Perris Fury, Canada Evolution and SDC Rhythm XP.

The home teams, SDC Rhythm XP and SDC Furies XP, are the only other teams coming back to this year's Midway Battle. However, Airspeed will definitely break the first record of the 2011 season and take the lead as the busiest competition team at this point in time. It will be the 6th meet for Arizona Airspeed this year and the 5th for the new 2011 lineup. The previous Airspeed lineup with John Eagle had attended the Dubai Championship 2011 in January.

Airspeed will not have any serious competition this weekend. However, there will be some pressure, as SDC Rhythm XP can measure the team's progression with the Airspeed scores. Rhythm has to cut the distance to the best US team to get into medal contention at this year's USPA Nationals. Rhythm's competition for USPA medals, Perris Fury - Golden Knights - Paraclete XP4, are not competing this weekend.

Midway Battle 2010			Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		B,9,21	J,P,E,10	G,M,7,L	4,Q,14	22,6,19	Total	Avg
1	USA Arizona Airspeed	News	29	28	33	23	19	132	26.4
2	USA Perris Fury	News	27	23	29	21	19	119	23.8
3	Canada Evolution	News	24	26	30	20	17	117	23.4
4	SDC Rhythm XP	News	23	23	27	18	17	108	21.6
5	SDC Furies	News	12	12	14	10	9	57	11.4

Airspeed, Rhythm and Furies had all attended the Shamrock Showdown 2011, and this weekend's scores will also show the progression between March and June. The performance at the Midway Battle indicates the status of the US teams on their way to the USPA Nationals.

At the same time, teams in the United Kingdom and Sweden will be using the same competition draw, as well as additional US teams at Cross Keys and Skydive The Point. None of the AAA Class teams will be able to keep up with Arizona Airspeed, and SDC Rhythm XP will probably win the 2nd place for the US teams on the upcoming weekend's leaderboard. However, there will surely be several other races all across the leaderboard in the different competition classes.

Airspeed takes the upcoming meet as serious as any other one, no matter how strong the competition is at the meet site. The team arrived today and made two training jumps in the afternoon. A trip to the movie theater was on the agenda at the end of the day and an early bed time. The NSL News will try to be up-to-date with reports from Ottawa throughout the weekend.