I can see how it would be hard to design a plane that was both fast in a straight line and fast around a race course.

I should get to fly my little plane this weekend, will be interesting to see how its flight characteristics changed by shortening the wing. Even though I built it as a pylon racer, there is none of that in my area, so I'm trying to optimize it for straight line speed as much as possible.

I'm going to build a plane for straight line speed next. I have chosen an airfoil but was struggling with wing area and wing loading. I was hoping someone would tell me, "don't exceed XX oz/sq in" or "don't use less than XXX sq in for a given weight". I'm realizing its not as cut and dried as that, and there are many things to consider.