Just repeating what I've been told, but no reason to doubt the fanciers telling me. Apparently the NRCC conveyer knows the way their pigeons cross and ours are taking a different route. I don't know how they have verified this, so it may just be a presumption. I've Google Distance calculated the coast route and it sort of ties in with the time taken at NRCC velocities, albeit being a further distance than the race distance our velocities drop quite a lot on this race compared to the others. Might just be they are slower from this race point.