We had a pretty good turnout for the last Q-25 race of the season, especially considering the weather forecast. Nine brave Q-25'ers showed up, but unfortunately we only had two racers show up for EF-1. As it turns out, the wind was straight down the runway at about 20 mph with occasional gusts. We've flown in worse. There were a few YEE HAA's out there due to the wind, and I'm guilty of some of them, but on the whole, I don't think that there were any planes lost due to the wind. There were a couple of "touch and go's" in the grass coming out of the downwind pylon, with Squidman's (Steve Fabianke) being the most dramatic. I think that he was just trying to help out the club with the mowing of the field.
Jerry Hellums put one in coming out of the downwind pylon, but I'm not sure if it was the wind or not Only one mid-air, I apparently put a wingtip through Steve Blackwell's aft fuselage, but both airplanes kept flying. One airplane damaged on landing. Gary Alphin's "Revolution" was really smokin' and it was very smooth in the wind. We flew 5 rounds of 3 man heats. At the end of 5 rounds we had a 2-way tie for first between Squidman and Alphin. It was a hard fought heat, and Gary Alphin turned in a time MUCH lower than the previous low time of the day. Unfortunately, he did so by flying a LOT shorter course than the pylons called for and double cut
. That left Squidman as the undisputed winner of the day.
We are putting together the schedule for next year and want to coordinate with the Waco, Georgetown and Hico C-40 races so that we can all get in as much racing as possible next year.
Also, we want to encourage more participation in EF-1 around here. We have been putting on EF-1 races for 2 years now but it hasn't seemed to catch on as of yet. With all the great ARF's out there, it's time to dust off the workbench over the winter and drag out the battery chargers and get racing. Just think, with EF-1 there is no nasty oil to wipe down and your wife won't get mad
at you for spilling fuel all over the carpet of the car.
