Hello Race Fans,
Wow, the day is over. The contest is over. We all had a good time.
We awoke this morning to very cool temperatures and rain. It rained on and off most of the morning from light showers to periods of heavy rain. The contest was delayed until 11:00am. We had two rounds to complete to finish the contest. Doug and I kicked off the first two heats for today. We set the pace with first place wins in our heats. Henry, Harold, Hank, and Terence followed suit nicely with wins in all of their races. Terence would like me to mention that he beat Roy in the first round this morning, thus spoiling a seven Canadian pilot sweep of first place finishes in the first round.
There was lots of good racing right up to the end of the day today. Hank put up a couple of blistering heats with his new Sweet-V. I think he really got the needle and the plane tuned in today. In Hank's last flight today he finished second or third due to one cut and then nearly mid-aired with another pilot just after the finish line as they both pulled up to shutoff at the same time. Meanwhile, in the very same race only seconds after, Travis Flynn and Joe Tropea did mid-air after the race was over as they pulled skyward and shutoff.
Roy survived the hail of parts and pieces as two other pilots in his race mid-aired right above him between pylons 2 and 3. Roy cruised to the win alone. I was mistaken in my blog report of last night. Roy has been flying his new Sweet-V that he test flew only early this week.
Harold turned in a nice 1:02 with his Strega today. Harold decided to park his wallet in his tool box and go out and fly. Perhaps we're all lucky he didn't do this six flights sooner...
Having finished yesterday in eighth place, which was actually a SIX way tie for third place, I was feeling a fair bit of [self-imposed] pressure to continue a strong performance today. It's only two more flights right ? Well, yes and no. I took first in both of my two rounds this morning which put me square in the midst of a FIVE way tie for second place overall. More flying was to come as trophies needed to be decided with fly-offs. The five way tie was broken by two heats. The winners of each heat would fly off one more time to decide second place. Mike Helsel and Craig Grunkmeier took to the air first. Then Lee VonDerHey, Gabriel Tahan, and I flew off. I got a little excited chasing Lee about half way through the race and I cut #1 pylon. Mike Helsel and Lee went on to a second flyoff to determine the final order for second and third place. About two or three laps into the race, Mike got in behind Lee's bad air on pylon #3 and spread his Two Sweet all over the Arizona desert. When the smoke cleared, I finished the day in fifth place overall.
Here is the finish order for the contest:
1. Tom Scott 1:04
2. Lee VonDerHey 1:01
3. Mike Helsel 1:03
4. Gabriel Tahan 1:06
5. Randy Smith 1:04
Fast Time: Gary Schmidt 1:00.29
12. Roy Andrassy 1:03
22. Henry Redekop 1:06
24. Harold Sattler 1:02
27. Doug Houston 1:04
36. Hank Kauffman 1:05
62. Terence Palaschuk 1:08
The Speedworld RC Flyers did a great job once again under the leadership of Jim Allen. If you find yourself in the need of some fun in the sun while going fast and turning left, come down to the Q40 Classic next February.
Thanks for reading.
PS. I have some racing video that I took but I'll post it on Youtube later this week. I'm tired.
Racin' Randy
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