Wednesday turned out to be a much more successful race day than the previous two. Quickie Rat had six Open entries and two Juniors. Everyone scored a presentable race time. FAI racing requires fixed pilot and pitman combinations, whereas in AMA racing, the entry is based solely on who enters the model.
F2d Combat at the AMA Nationals is the most prestigious of any event flown in the USA. The winner is deemed the National Champion, and Austin Minor was destined to take the top spot. He remained undefeated until his final challenger, Andrey Nadein, gave him his first loss. Austin came back from his narrow loss and took the final match. The crowd agreed, Austin was hot!
Today we started the first day of 426. The plan is to fly six rounds of qualifying.
The qualifying/finals format presents different strategies for competing, and many are just trying to make the finals. It proves to be fun and engaging for all. The two final rounds of qualifying will be flown on Wednesday morning.
Today was the first day of qualifying. This is the day that we start to find out how everything is stacking up. We flew two flights today and the best score counts toward the best score tomorrow. The two are then added together to determine who moves on to Thursday’s qualifying.
Today we started out with Slow Survivable Combat (SSC). George Pritchett was generous enough to loan a couple of planes to Nats newcomer Andrew Shkolik. That gave us four pilots to battle it out up in the sky.
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Tim Gillow tinkering with his birds.
Andrew Shkolik getting his loaner plane from George Pritchett ready.
SSC action shot.
George Pritchett on the hunt for a cut in 2948.
George Pritchett and Tim Gillow utilizing the golf cart to retrieve their GNATs.
Tuesday started out quite nicely, with a light breeze blowing right down the deck. It made takeoffs quite easy, and it was not too challenging for slow flight. Later in the day, the wind continued to pick up, reaching gusts of 24 mph officially.
Race day started off with the two juniors, Tristan and Mason Mayer, flying qualifying heats with their AMA Goodyear models. They were basically flying their Sport Goodyear models on the longer 60-foot lines, so the race times are quite presentable for the equipment that they used. Their races were uneventful, Open fliers take note.
Control Line (CL) Racing started off with the two juniors, Mason and Tristan Mayer, flying some practice heats and then a 100-lap final. Doug Mayer pitted for Tristan and Richard Kucejko was enlisted to pit for Mason. Mason and Richard were declared official winners with a 6:47.37 time compared to Tristan’s 7:27.97.
