In article .com,
"Pat" wrote:

You are right Mal,

though the whole consept is very good I think. I would of been nice to
see those final glide battles where only I second was separating pilots
(usually Ben Flewett)

Then ask your favourite TV station why they didn't pick the live feed
up. It was available, and it was great.

At least ask them to show the package currently being edited up. At the
function on Friday evening Peter Newport told me that he intended to
have the DVD ready to go within two weeks. I'm not sure about the TV
packagee, or whether there is a difference.


I truly hope that the reason that there were no tracking wasn't that
they wanted to so it only to the paid visitors (did I hear 10000-15000)
Ok, divide it by 100 Unfortunately Omarama is middle of nowhere.
Maybe next issue is, how to get this race closer to the big cities.

Wanaka is even further from Dunedin and (especially) Christchurch, but
they get 100,000 peeople there to Warbirds Over Wanaka.

The scenery along which the gliders were flying in close proximity is a
big part of what made the coverage so good.


Big thank to Mette and Dave who ran very nice web sites too. Lot more
information could be gathered thru there...

They have nice sites. Philip Plane also has a blog at
http://www.xinqu.net/cgi-bin/blosxom and Sue Wild's race diary on the
official site was also great when I wasn't there myself
(http://www.gp06.com/race_diary.htm).

From Mette's page:

"On the ground I could for the first time observe the second race on the
big screen and hear Gavin and Kirk Davis' live comments. I tell you, it
is all ready to go on Eurosport. It was amazing. In the second race the
pilots chose to fly more thermals and less on the ridges and were
therefore higher, slower and watching each other more. John Coutts and
Pete Harvey came in on a close finish, and time ran out. It was time for
price giving."

What she didn't see was the spectacle during the first sprint race
(which Mette was in herself) of Ben Flewett giving extensive commentary
(with video) directly from the cockpit of his glider as it raced along
the side of the Benmores, talking about his tactics and the other
pilots' tactics, and who was where, and even directing the TV editors as
to which camera might give the most spectacular view in the next few
seconds. Great stuff. And with all that he still won the race.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------