posted Aug 8th, 2014 - The British A Class teams were just as much jockeying for positions as all other British 4-way teams at the Hibaldstow Cup 2014, a month before the national championships. Last weekend's results promise the next exciting A Class showdown in September.

The A Class and Rookie Class winners at last year's Hibaldstow Cup, Tr4ck and Fly Wild, also won the gold medals at the national championships a few weeks later. This means that Kintama might have the best chances to win the national A Class competition this year.

Kintama's 13.2 average last weekend was significantly higher than Tr4ck's winning average (12.1) in 2013 and has put the team in the position of the A Class top contender. However, several teams behind Kintama are close enough to guarantee a good race, and two missing A Class top teams, Hard Corps and Virtus, will probably join the race for the UK medals in this category.

Hibaldstow Cup 2014		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Total	Avg
Rank	A Class	B,A,G	F,4	N,Q,7	M,21	9,O	K,6	Total	Avg
1	Kintama	14	13	15	11	15	11	79	13.2
2	Sky Dogs	12	10	8	11	12	8	61	10.2
2	Sea Fury	12	11	10	10	10	8	61	10.2
4	Almost Petite	7	11	10	9	10	8	55	9.2
5	Team Meteor	11	6	7	8	8	8	48	8.0
6	Gringo Reloaded	7	2	6	7	8	6	36	6.0
7	Hicks Chicks Keith	7	3	6	7	1	6	30	5.0

The A Class competition at the Hibaldstow Cup 2014 actually produced the third tie in the medal positions, between Sky Dogs and Sea Fury for the 2nd place. However, the two A Class teams did not add a jump-off round, and Sky Dogs won the silver medals.

The tied AAA Class teams (Pineapple Not The Messias - Antimatter) and AA Class teams (Equal Pay 4 Women - Phoenix) broke their ties in a jump-off round in different ways.

Pineapple Not The Messias won the additional round by one point, while the judges had to use the stop watches to find the faster completion of the last point in working time between Equal Pay 4 Women and Phoenix.

Kintama is a new UK team in the A Class this year, while Sky Dogs competed in the Rookie Class competition (4th - 9.0) at the UK Nationals 2013.

UK Nationals 2013		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Total	Avg
Rank	A Class	19,4	J,7	C,Q,L	9,G	H,2	K,8	21,P	6,M	Total	Avg
1	Tr4ck	10	13	15	11	12	10	11	15	97	12.1
2	Equal Pay 4 Women	9	14	11	14	12	11	11	13	95	11.9
3	Sky Vandals	9	13	14	11	12	13	9	12	93	11.6
4	Bazinga	9	9	14	12	10	10	10	13	87	10.9
5	Fr4gment	8	10	13	12	10	8	10	13	84	10.5
6	Team Tetley	9	10	10	10	9	9	11	13	81	10.1
7	Funnel Vision	7	8	12	11	11	8	10	9	76	9.5
7	Entropy	8	12	12	10	11	4	9	10	76	9.5
9	Kesshin	7	11	13	7	11	8	9	8	74	9.3

Six of the nine top teams in the UK A Class of 2013 can be found on the AA Class leaderboards this year. In fact, there was only one single A Class team this year in the United Kingdom (Virtus) who came back from the same category in 2013.

Sky Dogs, Sea Fury and Team Meteor know each other from the British Rookie Class competition of 2013. The finish at last year's UK Nationals between Sea Fury and Team Meteor was the same as last weekend in Hibaldstow, while the Sky Dogs have jumped ahead of their 2013 Rookie Class rivals.

However, all four teams behind Kintama tied their scores for Round 6, and the leaderboard will be reset to zero before Round 1 of the UK Nationals 2014. It will be a new and close race...