Next up was myself Graham Duncan and John Mackenzie. Yes we also had to fly with the strong wind and yes you guessed it the bl.. dy lights weren’ t working as they should. Never the less we all raced without any crashes in that class and the racing was also pretty close.
I would like to thank Graham Duncan for coming down to the South Island from the North Island to compete and have a go at racing pylon. Thanks Graham, hope to see you compete in the racing next time in the North Island in 2014.
Up next we had Intermediate class. There were three entries, myself, Les King and Matt Mackenzie. It was getting really windy now. We all flew and the racers were going really fast down wind and slowed up noticeably into the wind. These planes have a Q40 high time engine fitted, and in normal circumstances can do at least 190 mile per hour in other words they scream when they come onto the pipe.
Again we had issues with the lights, and the wind was so strong I couldn’ t remember ever having flown racers in a wind like this before. Well I think it was the second race when my daughter let the plane go and it went right into the back of Les King’ s model. We were second to take off, but Les’ s model was far too slow to get off the ground. That’ s another issue we may have to sort out. My view is that when there are faster and slower models in a particular heat, the slower ones really should be taking off last as they are just too slow to get off the ground. Any case I ended up breaking a prop and taking out a wee chunk about the size of a 10 cent piece on the leading edge of my wing. Les’ s tail plane was broken so he put that model aside and flew another model. For that race Matt was up flying by himself in that dam wind, he successfully completed that race and landed ok.
In the third heat Les and Matt got off ok but as that b …. dy wind was going all over the place and when my daughter released my racer it nosed dived into the ground. Stuff it I thought, there goes another carbon prop. Matt and Les finished the race ok and landed so that left me two races to go, so we had to sort the push offs a lot better. I changed the prop ready for another race and yes we were off and man that model was honking. I think I was lapping both Les and Matt. The times were really good even though we were having to battle the strong wind. For landing one had to come in real fast to make it back to the start line.
Last race started and we all got away ok. My racer just honking through the sky, and lapping the guys once more. Trouble is once I had finished my race I had to wait for the other to guys to finish so I had to fly full power around the sky as these models have no throttling, just got a shut off for the fuel. Seemed like ages before they finished and when they did I shut the fuel off and brought it in on a fast glide, landing good.
The next class was Quickie Expert with only Les and myself entered. By this time the wind was so strong it was nearly blowing the pylon poles to the ground. We raced anyway, and man my Quickie went like a cut cat, I think again lapping Les. I ended up only having to do 4 races to win that class. 0n take off my Quickie was actually going back wards and that was even with some down elevator held in. Also we again had trouble with the lights in the last two races, and ended up the guys on the lights having to flag us when we got to the No 1 pole.
Dave Austin and trophies
I think of all the classes that were run this day the times weren’ t that great mainly to the very very strong wind we had to contend with. Trouble we had with the lights didn’ t help either as everyone was going passed No 1 pole by 20-40 meters and this added to more lost time.
Results for the first three in the following classes are as follows:
Sportsman: 1st Dave Austin / 2nd Les King / 3rd Grahame Hart
Intermediate: 1st Dave Austin / 2nd Matt Mackenzie / 3rd Les King
Quickie Expert: 1st Dave Austin / 2nd Les King
Q500: 1st Matt Mackenzie / 2nd Dave Austin / 3rd John Mackenzie