By Michael Parker
Monday morning brought us cooler weather and sunny skies. We started the day with the Sportsman class, followed by Expert, F3C, and F3N. The wind was a little more aggressive than the day before, but a little more wind builds character and shows what the pilots need to work on a little more.
We had two first-time Nats competitors that needed to leave early, so we focused on getting as many Sportsman rounds in as possible so they could place. We managed to get four rounds of Sportsman in before they needed to leave, so the final round for Sportsman the next day will be their dropped round.
In addition, at around 1 p.m., 518 Scale performed their first round of three. We have three competitors for Scale: two Jet Rangers and a Hughes MD500.
We also managed to perform two rounds of Expert Class, F3C, and F3N.
Today was a great day, and everyone was having fun. I talked to the new Sportsman pilots and every one of them is having more fun than they expected. After doing this for seven years, it's so exciting to see the newer pilots enjoying competing as much as they do.
Tomorrow, we will start with the Sportsman class, and they will be finished first thing in the morning. Then, we will be focusing on the Expert class, F3C, and F3N.
The current scores are:
Sportsman
Douglas Trent: 2,978.52
Chris Goodin: 2,962.96
Michael Graves: 2,878.69
Charles Crespo: 2,812.58
Daniel Lucente: 2,696.38
Doug Leeka: 2,668.49
Mike Forland: 2,515.02
Joseph Ginski: 0
Expert
Gordie Meade: 2,000
Brian Byrdsong: 1,781.8
Michael Parker: 1,729.9
FAI/F3C
Danny Wang: 2,000
Yasunobu Muraki: 1,937.85
Timothy Diperi: 1,633.81
Wesley Minear: 1,546