Yeah, I think Cameron just wants to see that high final FAI score number (You're looking very smooth BTW, I'm genuinely impressed!)

Seriously, I want to again thank ALL of you brave souls for coming out and braving a really iffy forecast to fly some pattern and have some FUN. We had plenty of curve balls thrown our way, but I think for what we had to deal with we really did well to manage all 6 rounds. I REALLY want to thank the pour souls I had to wear out in the judges chair, this being a bottom heavy contest was great to see, just hard to judge. Exactly half of the pilots were in either sportsman or intermediate.

I think I've had all of 6 hours sleep...and not all at once...since Friday morning. Wicked hailstorms, tornadoes, waking up to the sounds of screaming dogs, chainsaws and gunshots at 3am Saturday morning.....so I'll post the final scores tomorrow when I'm only seeing one screen here. Dean and some others took some great pics and I hope he'll post some in the next day or 2.

Just some highlights (lowlights first):

Bryan kennedy smacked in his new ZN Supreme Firday during practice. the wind that day was easily the worst we've had anywhere in D3 in a very long time.
Bruce Thoman lost his Electric Eclipse practicing Saturday morning when he lost it in a low ceiling.
These are the 2 things that stand out as the really bad things.

The good things were 20 people showed up to an unknown field with an unproven CD during absolutely hellish forecast predictions. And as I said half of them were in the 1st 2 classes! We managed to get in 4 rounds Saturday by just after 6:30, and we started at 11am. I thought all things considered, things went very smoothly after we got going. my wife Melissa stepped up and did a flawless job of scoring. My only regret is that I didn't get to fly myself! I would have loved to see if I had anything for Cameron, Joe and Ryan in FAI (probably not, but it would have been fun trying)...but being my first time running a contest, there was just no way. I wanted to try and make things go as well as possible for everyone else. I have no doubt I wouldn't have made it through more than 1 round before I figured out I didn't have time.

I'll post scores later after I get some rest, I haven't taken anything at all out of the van yet.

A few notables: Marcio Jorge has served notice he's in it to win it in sportsman. The improvement in this guy is incredible.

Brian Billings, Jon Lowe and Gary Courtney had a really tight contest for intermediate that went down to the last round....and was won by less than 4 points. That was fun watching those standings print out [8D]

Erik Newsolme has made a very good transition from intermediate to advanced. His improvement just in 3 weeks since Ocala is remarkable. Jamie Strong overcame a lot of adversity pulling a camper through some of the worst storms to hit this area in some time, a wet transmitter, still flying on a single stick....and is still smooth and is a threat to win every time he goes up. I can see now I will require at least 12 cases of fuel between now and the nats to have a prayer...

Jim Ivey has really started to become consistent again. Emory Schroeter flew one of my planes saturday, and the other one on Sunday to second place in masters. That's a heck of a rally from the low point of losing a brand new scratch built electric 3 weeks earlier. Billy meadows is flying better than I have seen him fly in a long time, and that's great to see!

FAI, Joe Walker is still hard to handle with his trusty old Patriot missle. He and Ryan had to leave on saturday, but Joe won all 4 rounds. Cameron Smith is looking very well for a first time FAI pilot. he was very clean, smooth and well positioned.....just missing small things and experience. Ryan McLaughlin constantly shows incredible talent by flying different planes at about every contest.....and will have a great weapon soon, so I expect him to do VERY well later on this season.

Anyway thanks ALL of you, I'll post scores later on...

-Mike