Can we spell *SMASH*?

Saturday was a pretty day for a race. No rain, winds NE 10. a 150 miler from Paris, Texas to Tulsa , exact same race course as last week. They were released at 9 & 9:30 am, an hour later than last week. Since the first birds last week started arriving a little after 11 am, I plopped my self down on the patio to wait and watch. This was also a combine auction race and I had 2 CA birds competing. Payout would have been $103 each. Could use the money!

1 pm...nothing, 2 pm nothing...started calling fellow flyers, same thing for them, NOTHING. Ken got 2 birds at 4:45. By dark, there were only a handful of birds in. This was a 150 mile race! Should have been 3-3 1/2 hour race TOPS. We were supposed to bump the clock at 7 pm but since hardly anyone had any birds it was postponed until Sunday evening at 7 pm. Around 8:30 a guy from another club called and said he had one of my birds, Sunburst 94 had trapped into his loft at 4:08. Of course it didn't count for the race, but at least I had a bird, safe and sound.

Sunday Morning 2 birds trapped at 9:44 and 10:55. That was it....I got back 2 birds out of 20, which was my entire race team. We bumped Sunday at 7 PM. EVERYONE was missing the majority of their birds. Another member sent 40 birds and got 2 back. Many members didn't even HAVE anybirds. How can you have a smash on such a perfect race day??? Well this was a new one for most every member. I'm hoping maybe some will trickle in this week, but I don't have much confidence since it is calling for rain all week. Now I have to wonder if it is worthwhile flying my NOW 3 bird team with 4 races left to go. Pretty discouraging....