Drama Round September 2024
2024 Drama round 14th - 19th September - report by Simon Ford
The BPCup has been running for decades and is aimed at sports class pilots, many of whom will be competing for the first time. It also attracts more experienced pilots who like the ethos and chilled atmosphere the Cup provides. As you'd expect, most pilots fly C wings and for this event just over half were on two-liners. The comp format is a 4 day UK round and a week long round abroad. This years foreign leg was in Drama, Greece and Zeus, the Greek weather god seemed fairly content, allowing 4 tasks to be flown over the 6 days.
The organisation is headed by Viv Fouracre with Gareth Aston acting as Meet Director, task setter and scorer. They work well together and the events have the right combination of professionalism, safety considerations and fun. Each pilot is issued with a tracker which contributes to safety and enables real-time scoring. This meant that Gareth was often able to put out provisional task scores while the pilots were still enjoying a post flight beer.
Drama itself is an interesting town, with a wide choice of bars and restaurants, yet small enough to walk around too. The locals are friendly and the town feels very relaxed. Owen Thompson, who was the local contact for the event and did an exceptional job, chose Drama to set up his Skygods guiding business some years ago after touring around many of the European hotspots. It's easy to see why.
The main take off at Drama looks out over the flats and has 500m deep valleys on either side of launch with minimal landing options, but an easy ttb to the flats below. The combination of ridges and flats allows tasks to be set zig-zagging between the two. For most tasks there was an element of taking the more direct, but riskier, route or taking a longer but safer route by staying in the mountains.
Each day Owen sent out a comprehensive weather forecast on Telegram. This would be followed by an untimed provisional task, which would invariably be slightly amended on the hill.
Task 1 was a 48k race with the start cylinder forward of launch. About half the field made goal. The task was won by Tony Blacker with Tom Webb in 2nd place and James Lloyd in 3rd.
Task 2 was a 52k which took us past Drama and into the valley behind. No sooner had the window opened and a few launched than two military jets decided to do an arc around us before heading up the valley to Bulgaria at a height well below takeoff. Nerves calmed, or maybe not, only 4 pilots made goal with Tony again taking top spot and Tom 2nd again and only 30 seconds behind. John Murphy took 3rd. Consistency counts and the three of them showed this by being the only pilots who made goal on every task.
The weather for Task 3 wasn't ideal with barely any sun on the ground. Despite this the air was clearly unstable so Gareth set an elapsed time task of 35k. 18 pilots made goal. The two T's of Tony and Tom were just squeezed off the podium by Martin Bastow, Brian Greenwell and Robin Wallace respectively.
Task 4 on the final day and the two T's had it all to play for. Tom and needed to fly a blinder to make up the 88 point deficit behind Tony. Even though the rest of the field would have been delighted to achieve Tony's second place, Tom duly pulled the goods out of the hat and arrived in goal over 30 minutes before Tony, thus gaining the necessary time and lead points to become the overall winner.
If you're an XC pilot who is new to comps then you won't go far wrong by entering the BP Cup. You don't need to be on the latest Photon. Tony Strickland on his B wing made goal 3 times and a well deserved overall 5th place.
2024 BPCup Results
Overall
1st – Tom Webb – Swing Libra RS
2nd – Tony Blacker – Ozone Photon
3rd – John Murphy – Niviuk ArƟk Race
4th– Martin Bastow – Zoom XC2 (Also best newcomer)
5th – Antony Strickland – Phi Maestro 2
6th - Robin Wallace – Ozone Photon
Drama Round
1st - Tom Webb – Swing Libra RS
2nd - Tony Blacker – Ozone Photon
3rd- Martin Bastow – Zoom XC2
4th - John Murphy – Niviuk ArƟk Race
5th - Antony Strickland – Phi Maestro 2
6th - Robin Wallace – Ozone Photon
BPCup XCLeague as displayed on website - https://bpcup.xcleague.uk/
1st - James Lloyd – Swing Libra RS
2nd – Joseph Edmonds – Ozone Delta 4
3rd – Sean Staines – Ozone Photon
BPCup XC League with handicap scoring applied – See Rule 16 https://www.bpcup.co.uk/node/16
1st - Joseph Edmonds – Ozone Delta 4
2nd - James Lloyd – Swing Libra RS
3rd – Sean Staines – Ozone Photon
Special prizes
Fly Like Kev (in memory of Kevin McLoughlin) - David Fentum – Ozone Delta 4
Most improved – Nigel Barker – Ozone Buzz Z6
Drama Queens – Emma Withers – Swing Helios RS and Linda Wallace – BGD Base
Slo Mo Trophy (most relaxed flying) - Mark Simpson – Gin Bonanza