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