Well it was once again a long flight over from Australia to Windsor, Ontario.

In the last four weeks, the travel has been quite tough with the return flight to Rio and back, which involved a time zone change of 11 hours each way, then now back here with another 10 time zone changes!

The team is all here and working well together. Jack arrived here on Friday last week, and proceeded to build the aircraft and install some new wires for the HD cameras in the aircraft. Alicia, our new TC for these next two races (while Dave stays in Australia for the birth of his first child) travelled with Pedita, Mitchell and I from Sydney, arriving on Saturday evening. A little bit of administration work on Sunday, a little bit of time at the airfield looking at some new things and then out to dinner to celebrate Alicia’s birthday wrapped up a great first day.

Unfortunately, Sunday evening and Monday did not go as well as hoped. I woke up in the middle of the night with a head cold and spent the next 10 hours in bed in and out of sleep. In the end, I dragged myself out of bed at what was the equivalent of 2am Sydney time and went out to the airfield.

I managed to get myself into the cockpit and do a test flight, though was not much fun and went back to the hotel feeling sorry for myself! All that started to disappear over the next 24 hours and I am starting to get back to full strength and enjoyment of the flying.

The track here in Windsor is almost a duplicate of last year’s track, the only difference being the old Quadro is replaced with the twin knife edge gates, now known as the duo. This will be the first time I fly on a track which is the same as one I have already completed and the second time only I am racing in a familiar location. Hopefully these two items will make the race quite enjoyable and successful for me.

A lot of people are reminding me about my pylon hit here last year when I went quite spectacularly through the Quadro. It is even being replayed over and over in the hotel lobby! I am not concerned about a repeat, as that was an error in my judgment and lack of experience, which could have happened in any track. I have learnt a lot since then, and am pretty happy I can make it through this track cleanly and fast.

The aircraft is going well again, I will be feeling well soon and the track is ready to be raced.

I say let’s get going and put down some good times!

Stay tuned, Matt

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