By Ola Nordell
The end of the 2024 AMA RC Pylon Nats has arrived. We ended up with days of great weather, some with wind and rain. The workers performed nearly perfectly all week. We flew 63 heats of AMA 424, 70 heats of EF-1, 80 heats of AMA 426, and 144 heats of AMA 422 for a total of 357 heats of racing. This made for some long days and fast racing.
None of this is possible without the help of some key people. Doug Killebrew was the contest director for the event and kept all of the workers organized. This was Doug’s first time running the AMA RC Pylon Nats, and we owe him a huge thank-you for the efforts of him and his workers. Two others that really make the Nats possible are Tom Melshimer and Chuck Andraka. Tom was responsible for the race operation equipment. His system has been used for the last several years and has been perfect from the start. Chuck was responsible for the Matrix generation and the scoring tabulation and posting. Again, we can’t do what we do without guys like Doug, Tom, and Chuck. Thank you.
The overall RC Pylon Champion is the pilot with the best combined scores from AMA 426 and AMA 422. This year, Gino Del Ponte from Texas earned the RC Pylon Overall Champion award. It was quite an accomplishment, and Gino’s flying was perfect all week long.
Note from AMA: Do you have photos from the Nats that you’d like to share? If so, email them to Clarissa Poston at clarissap@modelaircraft.org. Please include a brief description in your email, naming any individuals pictured in the photo(s), the name of the event that the photo(s) were taken during, and the name of the individual who took the photo(s). Your submission(s) might be posted on AMA’s Flickr page, which can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/modelaircraft/albums!