posted Sep 7th, 2003 - The competition is back to ground zero. Round two surprisingly evened the field. France, Russia and U.S.A. are all tied in first place. Russia and Airspeed both went through the whole 50 seconds as if they were the same team, synchronized until the Omniskore freeze frame. Both teams missed the second Donut for the completion of the 20th point by fractions of a second. Actually, the French 8-way team did exactly the same thing. However, they had to accept a penalty when a brainlock to the Double Spiders (M) on top of the fourth page caused this formation to be incomplete when it was keyed.

France was fortunate that this glitch did not cause more damage. One of the judges did not like the following inter, as well. The French 8-way team still recovered quick enough to deal with this inter properly and convince the rest of the judging panel that the transition was correct. The final result was a 17 on the scoreboard. And the French 8-way team had given up the two-point advantage as quick as they had earned it. Airspeed team captain Craig Girard was not surprised. He expects the whole competition to be like this, a constant up and down between the three top contenders. "This is so exciting", he mentioned between rounds one and two, "it is exactly what we were all hoping for." And he has done this already many times in his career.

The 8-way competition is over for today. While Russia and Airspeed will spend the rest of the day to prepare for the next rounds and relax, four members of the French 8-way team now have to switch gear. The 4-way teams will soon receive their first call for round one. France Maubeuge has to show how they can deal with the challenge of competing in both events at the same time. The competition in 4-way will be just as tough as in 8-way. The NSL News will now try to use the break to upload videos of the second round that were taken off the large screen in the spectator area. Stay tuned.