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The 2019 Clover Creek Invitational was a unique event by hosting not only a freestyle category of competition but it also offered a contest for former TOC pilots to participate in. It was very cool to see some of the old TOC memorabilia on display. It was very obvious that the TOC pilots enjoyed being involved in the contest and had a great time flying. The freestyle category was a 4 day long contest that began on Thursday and ended Sunday with 7 pilots flying on the final day. There was a total of 13 freestyle rounds which was probably the most amount of flying I had ever done in a single freestyle competition. Knowing that it was going to be a very long contest, I knew there was some time for experimenting between routines and airplanes. I entered the contest with 3 freestyle routines that I had practiced and planned on flying them between two different airplanes. I had one routine that I felt fit the 104" Laser very well, and I had the other two routines for the 100" Slick. Since I was mostly curious on how the Laser routine would score, I began the contest with that flight in round 1. This was the routine I had the least amount of practice with as I put together the freestyle just a few weeks prior right before we left for Europe. The first time I actually flew it with the Laser was about 5 days before the contest during practice in southern Indiana. Although I felt I had a decent flight in round 1, I was blown away when I found out the I had won the first round by a significant amount. I felt extremely pleased that the judges liked that routine. In round 2, I decided to try out another new routine but this time with the Slick. Although this routine had not yet been flown in any contest, it was not a new routine for me. I had practiced it several times and had it at XFC earlier in the year but did not use it. I felt like I flew the routine about as good as I possibly could and was extremely happy with my round 2 flight with the Slick. When the scores were posted after round 2, I again picked up another thousand. However, I was slightly worried because this time it was extremely close. I had only won round two by less than 4 normalized points. For the third round, I decided to go back to the Laser routine. Fortunately, I was able to gain another round win which boosted my confidence back up again. After the first day after seeing the success I had with the Laser routine, I decided I would stick with that routine and try my best each round to fly it as perfectly as I could. My goal was to pick up as many thousands (round wins) as I could in order to make it difficult to overtake my overall score. I knew that even if I lost a few rounds, it wouldn't matter in a 13 round contest since those would all be thrown. I was able to win every round on Friday and Saturday and went into Sunday with a total score of 7,000 with three thousands being thrown out of a total of 10 flights with three more to go. Knowing that I still was able to pull off round wins with the Laser routine after all those rounds, I flew the first two rounds on Sunday with that routine and the Laser. For the final round I pulled back out the Slick and flew my old freestyle routine from Clover Creek 3 years prior. When the final scores were announced, I found out that I had won 12/13 rounds with the final round being the one I placed 2nd in. It was pretty crazy to realize that a routine I hardly had any practice on was able to have such great success at this contest. The Laser performed flawlessly and the Slick was also able to get the job done in the two flights it flew in the contest. Final results: 1. Jase Dussia 9,000.0 2. Spencer Nordquist 8,765.9 3. Kal Reifsnyder 8,659.5 4. Santiago Perez 8,278.5 5. Bryant Mack 8,162.0 6. Jj Hedrick 7,473.8 7. Chris Gini 7,249.9 ---------------------------------------- 8. Tyler McCormack 5,645.4 9. Rhett Lambert 5,616.3 10. Tom Edgecombe 5,589.2 11. Miguel Alcala 5,563.9 12. Mel Nipkow 5,558.0 13. Adi Kochav 5,520.4 14. William Jackson 5,423.1 15. Jacob Ramsey 4,963.8 Excellent job to the event organizers for all their hard work. Thanks to The Lord for giving me the opportunity to come back and fly at this wonderful facility, thanks to all my sponsors for their continuous support, and thanks to my parents!
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