RCU Forums - Club 40 at the NAT's

Club 40 July Race Report

Well it’s July and for the last four years our July race has been conducted as part of the annual National Aeromodeling Championship generally know as the NAT’s. This year was a bit different in that the NMPRA (National Miniature Pylon Racing Association) invited us to race on site 3, show center on Friday, 6 July to kick off Pylon week in Muncie!
Flying off pavement was a bit different the planes really jumped into the air and the electronic airplane release couldn’t be anchored by spikes in the asphalt so they were mounted to a board that was weighted down to keep from being dragged across the runway.

A picture is worth a thousand words so look at the NAT’s news for pictures and results.

http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/nat.../07/070718.pdf

It didn’t rain! The weather wasn’t hot, but it was windy! Landings were a bit of a challenge. But the wind was pretty much in the direction we wanted to takeoff in so with the exception of the Silver class fly off everything was fine, just lots of corrections for the high crosswinds to stay on course between the pylons and the race times were higher than normal due to the wind. The racing was as tight as ever it’s just the times didn’t reflect it.

New to our group (but not pylon racing) was Bronze racer Jeff Jones setting Bronze fast time. Once he gets used to flying in traffic he will be a serious contender for the top step in the finish order. The Cincinnati gang was also represented by the Father Son team of Brian and Michael Delahunty with respectable results.

The biggest surprise was defending NAT’s champion Clint Seyer and former NAT’s champion Tim Sparks were unable to reclaim their form to get to the top of the standings in the Silver class. Cuts due to the high winds and mechanical issues had them tumble through the standings. Better able to cope with the winds were our top three finishers in the Silver class Trey Witte on top (including fast time) and local circuit familiars Tom Koehler (TK) and Matt Fornefeld.

This year we did not fly the Texas Ladder to figure our winner but after six rounds, finished on points order. Both Bronze and Silver class needed a fly-off to determine Top Dog so after a day of racing it came down to a one-on-one, head-to-head race to see who was going to be our new NAT’s champion, kind of a Mini Texas Ladder.

First up was the Bronze race between defending NAT’s winner David Poland and Tim Porter (T3). Things looked great for the first few laps then the wind got a little fierce and planes got unsettled with David prevailing and repeating his efforts from last year. In the Silver class it came down to Trey Witte and TK for all the marbles, again the wind was a factor with Trey prevailing.

Awards were handed out and a big thank you goes to Tom Melshimer who assisted with the computer and ground work that allowed me to race as well as run the event, try it some time its a lot harder than it sounds…..
even for a small race.

Everyone had fun and some merchandise from Stegall Hobbies were passed out to the last place finishers in Silver and Bronze along with Bronze fast time. Thank you Don!

We offered the Gold class but we had no entries. At the first two NAT’s we did an after the race race between the top two Gold places and the two top Silver places…. Silver has always prevailed.

Our next circuit race is going to be a Bronze ONLY race in the Cincinnati area on Saturday 18 Aug. More info to follow on that race as they get things organized.

PS. As promised for the Bronze racers. Next week, I’ll be getting refund checks in the mail for part of you NAT’s entry fee. If you don’t see anything by the end of the month drop me an email. I’m off to a scale event this weekend so its busy here.

I solicit your input on any suggestions or omissions that I need to do to make this a better event.

Club 40 Silver : Club 40 Bronze:
1 Trey Witte 1 David Poland
2 Tom Koehler 2 Tim Porter
3 Matt Fornefeld 3 Jeff Jones

Your Humble race reporter.
Tim Sparks
Sparky