Saturday started with the same fog as Friday did. This gave us some more
time to study our 2 Unknowns and even catch a mistake in my Known #2 call
sheet I had written a week before the contest. Thank you fog. When flying
did finally start, everyone had their A game with them. I was very happy to
be flying after Quique and before Christophe as I felt this was going to be
the top 3 (going by the flying I had seen the previous 2 days). One thing
that was different here from other contests was they were not showing ANY
scores, rounds or individual, so no one knew how they scored until it was
all over. All of my rounds went great, with my only concern being my last
freestyle. I was doing a wing-tip spin on the right end of the runway when I
exited close to the deadline (zero line). From where I was I couldn't tell
if I had pasted it or not (didn't think so) and I didn't know if the judges
thought I had passed it or not. It was killing me to think that I may have
zeroed my final freestyle round of the contest...

After some pictures and joking around, it was time for the results..........

7th: Peter Goldsmith......
6th: Sebastiano Silvestri............
5th: Mark Leseberg...........................
4th: Chip Hyde........................................

Well, at least I knew I was in the top 3, and will the lack of practice and
small issues I had, I was happy. Then they called

3rd: Christophe Paysant LeRoux....................

By this time, I had already won in my mind. I knew I was 2nd cause it was
announced that 2nd and 3rd were only .12 points apart. Quique was flying
outstanding the whole contest and then they announced

2nd: Jason Shulman

I felt as though I had just won the Masters, even in 2nd place.

1st: Quique Somenzini

And it was finally done. Champaign was flying through the air and everyone
was smiling and laughing, it was finally over. Now we have to wait until
2006 for the next Masters.

Photo courtesy of Carol McKinney