Wednesday May 2, 2001
    Already by nine a.m. a Ford Transit belonging to the Prague company, Gradient, climbed to the top of Stranik, and out of it jumped Ondra Dupal, Mirek Varvarovsky, and Milan Kamenicek, who with lightning speed unpacked their parachutes and took off all at the same time. With this simultaneous flight along the same route, they compared the individual performances of their 'machinery', though admittedly, since as regards wind direction, Ondra cleverly selected a slightly better track. Nevertheless, his new yellow-colored prototype, as yet un-named, did out fly the other two studs.

    The specification of yesterday's number of competing pilots brought a big surprise. The inadvertent inclusion of competitors who had pre-registered but had not shown up in the end, meant that there were approximately twenty fewer pilots than were counted yesterday, and so others were able to sign up. So the final start list for today around noon consisted of 68 names altogether.



    In light of the beautiful weather and predicted excellent thermic conditions, a triangle with the first turning point by Lutise, the second by Krasna nad Kysucou and the goal at the saddle up under Stranik was announced at the briefing. A route of 47 km altogether. Because the opening of the start window was set for 12:45, after 12 several non-competing tourists hurled themselves into the air, and had no problem catching on.



    Precisely five minutes before the opening of the start window, Ondra Dupal flew out on his own triangle and so became the only pilot, as was later shown, this day to finish his planned route, even though not competing. The main wave of take-offs broke at 12:55 and thanks to the precisely demarcated take off isle, and the strictly adhered to two-minute start interval, the well known chaos and confusion on the starting ground didn't happen.

     In contrast to yesterday, today's wind blew only weakly, the heated southern slopes of Stranik functioned reliably and all but Marcel Konecny, who suffered evidently, for some time following his take-off, everyone quickly rose high above the start. The base altitude today was around 2,800 meters.



    Suddenly a white canopy appeared above the circling, colored parachutes high above Stranik, and began to drop rapidly. Slovak pilot Robert Kralik tried in vain to pull in the billowing canopy of his main chute, which kept swaying him as his altitude quickly dropped. Finally the wind forces mercifully set him down into the crowns of the trees of the southeast bank of Stranik, far below the starting ground. He remained hanging at about six meters above the ground and the organizers got him down with the help of a rope in a short while. He got off without a scratch.



    An hour later at 2:25 p.m., the first thunder was heard and the horizon to the North darkened ominously. The main competitors course was located precisely in this area on the second leg of the triangular journey and the organizers had no choice but to cancel the discipline. Within the next hour even the sky above Stranik darkened and a strong rain began to fall. But by now pilots were returning from the route only to find out that the best place to be was the restaurant in the hangar on Stranik. A big party for all participants had been planned here in the hangar for the evening.



    So on the second day of the competition all the racer are still without a single point, and the weather forecast indicates that tomorrow's weather should resemble today's.