I truly am grateful to the dozen or so people who came out today, despite the rain.
You guys win the
Dedicated Racing Fanatic title for sure!
For the rest of you non believing infidels, I stick my tongue out at you:
~Thbbbppt! You missed some excellent conditions.
My little MiniBlade was climbing out higher than any of my big planes ever did at this slope.
We really had great lift conditions.
The day started out interestingly. I had to back my car up to the garage to load the planes in the torrential downpour. It was raining so hard that the water splashing off my car and driveway got me soaked, and I was standing IN my garage!
My wife just stood there shaking her head. Her body language quite clear on the degree of my foolishness. Ha! I say, it’s gonna be great!
Here is a short video of the conditions as I pulled away from my house:
http://www.socalsloperacing.com/gallery/f3f/20050219/MOV00073.MPG
An hour later as I approach the coast, I turn onto the 110 freeway, and it’s totally dry and the sun is out. Yeeha! The wind was indeterminate as I made my way closer to San Pedro, until I reached Gaffey Street and saw flags blowing hard, and from the north! 
This is perfect. I called Dan and Woody and relayed my discoveries, but they were unconvinced. Dan was driving through some east wind just a few miles to the south, and said it was just an anomaly of where I was standing. Ha! I say, it’s gonna be great!
So I get the slope, and the sun is beaming, the slope is lush green, joggers are cruising by in shorts and tank tops, and the wind is cranking! Here is a video of what I found on my arrival: http://www.socalsloperacing.com/gallery/f3f/20050219/MOV00080.MPG
I’m the first there, so I walk all around the point, and decide that the wind is coming from just left of west, and give my MiniBlade a mighty heave off the point…..to watch it sink down down down. No lift! It goes out of sight so I just point it back into the cliff (I hope) and put down the tranny and start walking.
At that point, DelHagen shows up, visibly reassured at the conditions compared to what he drove through to get there. I explained my predicament and begin the long walk towards the beach trail while he breaks out a foamie.
I find my plane in one piece, parked on the cliff in some soft dirt between two big rock outcroppings. The cliff has lots of evidence of recent rain induced slides. I plot out a safe looking accent and head up the cliff face. I reached my plane without incident (or breathe!), when the cliff started to feel a bit rubbery. I decide to climb up instead of back down to the trail. It was harder than I thought, but I made it up. When I scrambled over the top, I was greeted by Dan and Dwayne ripping it up on the normal north face! Doh! They were really moving with quite a bit of energy. Ha! I say, it’s gonna be great!
I went back to the car, retrieved the gear, and everyone quickly set about getting the course set up. Thanks guys! That was a great help!
At that point, people started showing up, plus 5 or 6 pilots who I thought were flying but they were just on their way to Fermin. So I redid the matrix and sorted the channels and was ready to rock. I gave a really quick and woefully inadequate pilots meeting (note to self: be sure to state if there is a Zero round and the round format next time!). I announced the pilot line up, and son of a gun, the first 3 people on the list were not ready, even after they were hollering at me to get things moving! After a short delay, we got it going and Rey demonstrated that indeed there was ample lift on the course. Woohoo! It’s gonna be great!
One quirk of Whitepoint is that you land 15 meters from where you stand, but it’s on the other side of a tall chainlink fence and you have to walk a considerable distance to retrieve it. With a short roster and flying single rounds, it means that no one was able to stand their turn on the poles. The first round was a logistic challenge for me, so starting with the second round, I switched us to double rounds and flying starts. Whew, much better!
The course today was set up to accommodate the slightly leftish wind, and it really messed with my head. We fly Whitepoint so often, that my brain was hardwired for a different turn point altogether. Dan Field seemed to compensate the best, and was really nailing the corners (hmmm…he also set the poles. I wonder…). Another thing Dan did the best was change his flying style to match the wind. He opened up his turns and flew the European style on the upwind leg, with excellent effect. He won all seven rounds!
I tried to mimic his technique, but never mastered it. I’d get the turn right, but long, or get the distance right, but mess up the turn. Doh!
There was a bit of carnage today. The strong winds coming across the softball fields created a wonderful rotor. Woody also ditched his Banana on his trim flight, then again on his first round after just missing turn 1, and inducing a phenomenal flick trying to turn back again to get the corner. His nose cone is still somewhere in that cliff face.
Thanks again to Rey’s climbing rope! It was used several times, and has really been a great help to us all during the season.
A rainline developed off shore and was moving in, so at the end of round 7 I opted not to push our luck and called the race. This was in part due to the quiver of full size racers that various people wanted to trim out for future events. Bill got his new homebrew MoM racer up and about, Alexi was able to fly his Brio after months of gathering dust, and Dan Field showed us why he loves his new Skorpion F3F so much!
It was a great day. I thumb my nose at all you unbelievers who stayed home. While you all watched your lawns wash away, I got myself a wicked sunburn!
Cheers,
Nathan Woods, CD
