One More Time!
Racing was a great success in 2014. Congratulations to Terry, Sean/KC and Tom for their first, second and third place finishes!
We had eleven teams show up to compete on opening day:
Background
Click here for background & previous years' results
For more information, contact the Race Coordinator
2014 Play-by-Play
by Neil Makar
April
April saw the start of the Park Fiier Air Races at Little field, but the weather was overcast, windy and threatening rain, forcing a short day. (The same weather forced cancellation of the Combat sorties as well.) The day started with eleven fliers, and finished after two heats with nine. A rudimentary grid was drawn on the runway using chalk. This helped to make the line up easier. A status board is being developed that will allow us to mark the grid positions for each heat/section, making line up even easier in the future.
Heat one started out well, with section one consisting of six planes and section two having five. Greg Wiren had an unforced error resulting in a crash, taking him out of the running for the day. Rob Showman overflew the pilot's stations, and in keeping with the rules, was disqualified. Chuck Maguire won section one and Sean Butler won section two.
Heat two was more eventful. Coming up to the last pole in lap seven, Chuck and Bruce Scott were a cowling length apart, when Chuck's airplane ran into Bruce's, causing Bruce to crash hard. Chuck on the other hand managed to keep flying, and completed the last 1/4 lap, finishing in first. So chuck again won his heat, with Terry Hubbard winning section 2 of that heat.
After that the weather closed in causing us to cancel the last two heats. One note - both fliers that crashed out had no spare airplanes or parts. Rob experienced a power train failure, but had a spare plane ready to go, and was able to compete. Having spares ready to go is a highly recommended policy to maintain.
May, June and July
You had to be there!
August
The first Saturday in August was perfect for flying. The wind was slack, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We decided to use Northbound takeoffs for the event. We started the day with nine participants, and therefore had two sections of five and four aircraft.
During the pilots briefing prior to the start, a couple of rule changes were decided upon. The first regarded hitting a pole. The Contest Director initiated a penalty of ten (10) points to anyone who breaks a pole. That is, if you break a pole, ten points are subtracted from your score for the day. The last time the pole was broken it cost the club over $15.00 to fix. The penalty is intended to encourage fliers to be a bit more careful and go around, not attempt to go through the pole.
The other change was to the issue of contestants flying to close to the pilots' stations. It was decided on the insistence of one participant (possibly due to the close calls during combat the previous month) that the first time a pilot flew between the runway and the pilots stations that the result would be immediate disqualification.
By the luck of the draw, the two (typically) fastest entrants, Terry and Chuck, were in separate sections, saving them from having to go head to head. In any event, that would not have mattered. Terry was leading H1-S1 comfortably ahead of the #2 position when, in attempting to round the north pole, he instead hit it square on, damaging his airplane beyond the possibility of field repair, and braking the pole in the process, thereby incurring the 10 point penalty. With Terry out, Rick (#77) went on to win the heat. Section 2 was won by Chuck (#13) in a clean race.
Heat 2 Section 1 was uneventful with Rick winning again, and section 2 was distinguished by Brian (#10) being DQ'd for flying between the runway and the pilots' stations. The section was ultimately won by Chuck.
Heat 3, Section 1 resulted in the 2nd crash of the day with Ray (#15) going into the trees, the win going to Rick again. Section 2 also resulted in a crash; this time it was the #7 of Sean and KC, with KC acting as pilot. The race went to, yup, you guessed it, Chuck.
At this point all crashes resulted in the participants unable to continue, so we were down to six ships for the final heat. So the two sections were merged into one last section. Heat 4 had the remaining planes, but had some interesting results. Not to out do himself by winning all four of his heats, Chuck decided to go out instead by colliding with Greg in #14. Greg had succeeded in coming in 2nd in each of his previous heats, but he was unable to finish heat 4, as was Chuck, bringing the number of crashes to five for the day.
The super surprise in this heat though was the result. By some intervention by God or Fate, the winner of the heat was...(no, this can't be right - wait - yes it is!) BRIAN (#10) in his best finish of the season! Rick, who had previously won his heats, came in second.
So, the collected points this day ranged from 93 (Rick) to -10 (Terry). Second in collected points for the day was Chuck with 75, followed by Tom and Rob, each with 57. See the chart for the remainder.
October
Well, the October KARCS PFR event was held on Saturday, and thus completed the season. All four heats were run with two sessions each, and fun was had by all. We now have completed the season and have our final pilot standings.
As you can see, the final standings are very close, especially between the top three. Sean and KC are only out by 23 points. They were unable to participate in October and that cost them the championship. Just three 6th place finishes would have been enough for them to win.
Tom also had a spot of bad luck when he slammed into a pole and collected a DNF for the heat. He then lost radio contact with his aircraft during his required test flight, finishing him for the day. Had he finished his final three heats in 3rd place or better, he could have won.
But what ifs are just that, and as it turned out Terry has won the 2014 competition. As a result, he is authorized, if he chooses, to fly airplane #1 next season rather than his 37. Sean and KC have the option of Flying as #2, and Tom can fly as #3 in 2015. (All others must fly their regular numbers.)
As for the fastest heat for the year, no data was collected for July, so the heats in April, May, June, August, September and October apply. Interestingly, both the slowest at 113 seconds, and the fastest at 75 seconds occurred in October. The fastest heat was #3, section #1, and was won by Rick Fuller. Congratulations go to him for this accomplishment.