Report from Mifflin:

Today 19 year old Daniel Sazhin flew the highest handicapped speed of either class at Mifflin in a 1-26, on what just about everyone agreed was one of the roughest and trickiest ridge days they have every flown. His actual distance was 226 miles. I was flying with KS along with SM and HW on Tussey, where we saw Daniel several times on the flight, going about the speed of hell (our passing speed was much less than I would have expected), and all remarked "wow, how the hell is he doing that!?!" (Sorry to Daniel's mother on mother's day, but hell is the appropriate word here all around!)

HW reported Daniel said on the grid "this is my day." Now thats confidence! As XX said to me several times in a recent 5 hour interview, "you have to believe you're going to win." Apparently Daniel did, and did!

I understand Daniel is a protege of Ron Schwartz, a great pilot and man in his own right. Thanks Ron. And thanks to Hank Nixon, who as always looks after junior pilots with his sage advice. It appears Daniel is one to watch!

Meanwhile, I am back at the hotel attempting to recover from taking 4G shots every three minutes for 4.5 hours, attempting to catch items that repeatedly flew around the cockpit, no matter how hard I tried to button everything down. I can only imagine what the g-loads felt like in a much lighter 1-26...

2C