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Man on Man Results - Cajon Pass, 06/25/2005

 

Well boys and girly men you missed a great MOM event at Cajon today. Damn CD showed up late after working on his Weapon until 2 am , back up at 6:15 but made a mistake of sitting down and resting his eyes.

First special thanks goes for our volunteers on the lights all day. George Voss ( in the flesh ), Brother Art Voss and Bob large. Thanks guys, we would still be up there if it weren't for you.

Anyway... wind was already up at 11:30, Mike Sheridan said it was 10-15 at 10 am. We didn't start until 12:30 and we were done at about 3. Wild guess, by 2 or so we were seeing 25 +, Hard to get your model to the starting line, life is good when you're running lead.

Can't beat a good Cajon day for thrilling starts from way way up. I think I heard Nathan mention a 7 second drop on one, most were 5-6 ish.

Lots of damage today, except for Rey and I having a midair, all on landing. Some serious and some just a servo or arm. By round 5, we had 3 out of the comp. My Pike X will fly again and I think Rey just needs some gears.

Nathan used a new method for wing joiner, Yellow Electrical Tape, works well for all but really big dives.

TFLG, aka Brian Laird is our winner. He flew well all day , smooth and stayed out of trouble. Thanks for coming out guys, I have some good memories. Grinding down the MOM Master Bill and running out of time was exciting even if second ( last, 2 up today ). There was many a close race today, very exciting. A couple were tail to nose for all 8 laps.

And Timmig is a great caller, thanks.

And here are the results.

Brian Laird - 7
Tim Neja - 8
Bill DelHagen - 9
Rey Harju - 11
Dan Field - 13
Mike Sheridan - 19
Dave Bates / Nathan Woods - 20

Dan Field, CD

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Comments from Nathan Woods:

The conditions today were outstanding, with huge lift and powerful wind. I watched one round with TFLG catching the benefit of a big thermal and a nice headwind turn fling his Wizard inverted in a reverse Immelman on Base A, and hold it that way nearly all the way back to Base B because the lift was still zooming him.

My favorite race was my first one, and I think it was against Mike Sheridan, we were neck and neck the entire time, with shadows on each others wings on every turn, and taking turns in the lead. That was a blast!

I won the first three rounds, then suffered the joiner issue, and merely placed second the 4th round. Those standings sure don't seem to reflect that, but DNF's must really hurt you :-)

We did have a lot of carnage today, but was 95% purely due to a landing zone that we were unfamilar with. Only one in air contact all day long.

Personally speaking, I landed 4 times, and crashed all 4 times! After the third "landing", I turned my wing into a sponge, and broke a wing joiner. I did a hasty semi-repair and flew it again just so that I could finish one more round and avoid the DNF point penalty.

A few notable memories from the Race:

- Special thanks to George Voss and Co. George is one of Soaring's nobilty, and it was a real treat to have him run our turns all day. With only 8 pilots, their availabity on the turn probably saved us two hours over the course of the day, because we didn't have to run back and forth to the far turn to work the lights for each other. A HUGE THANKS! I would have loved to talk to you more...like why were you there?, but time did not allow it. Next time!

- Getting to the slope and listening to the screams of several planes up on step and simply howling with pleasure. That's always a good sign!

- Watching Rey Harju flick his Trinity right in front of us on Base A. (Yes, the same Rey who runs his CG about 4mm back behind what EVERYBODY else does).. This was not a normal flick. Rey's plane did a full and complete corkscrew within the span of his own wingtips, right on the pole, and then continued to fly, heading out in the right direction. Rey never even said a word, not even a grunt of surprise. Been practising that move Rey ? LOL

- My first Race with Mike, being neck and neck the entire time.

- Bill DelHagen getting his heavy scratch built plane into a nice thermal on launch, and having a 7 second vertical dive straight into the course right on the mark. That was impressive. I think Rey was right there with him at the start, but only had a 4 or 5 second dive and never made up the gap in speed.

- Watching Rey re-adjust to his Mirag. It took two rounds, but on the third round, against TFLG I think, he found that overdrive button and the Miraj started smoking! He was turning unbelievably hard on Base A, partially because it was so light and into the headwind, partially because he has it set up to turn harder than any other plane on in the F3F world. It really got up on step, and even though he was outweighed by about 40 ounces compared to everyone, it didn't seem to matter much. He didn't win with it, but he did not lose either.

- Watching Mike's SuperBlade full of lead in cranking hard wind, while pulling hard G's into the near turn. Must have some sort of sling shot effect :-)

- My last flight with only half a joiner, and a lot of tape and a little bit of hope, as my Acacia flew with annehedral in one direction, and polyhedral in the other. Really had to fly smooth just to keep in the air. Timmig was yelling, "bring it down, it's gonna fold!", but I was determined to finish that round :-)

- Watching the last flight of the day, between Dan Field and Rey Harju. It was really close all the way, with lead changes at every Turn with Rey pulling ahead, but Dan's much heavier Pike catching him on the long straights. About 30 yards from the finish line on lap 8, Dan dove down below Rey, to make his move, and Rey dropped down a bit with him and they touched, not hard, but enough to force Dan down but Rey stayed up and finished. That was the only contact all day long, and it was right at the finish line with two guys flying their guts out. Great stuff!

Thanks Dan, for the plane, the CD'ing, and the great day.

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