2007 RACE SEASON RECAP
The 2007 season turned out to be a great season, in my eyes. I would like to thank all of the 2007 USRA officers for a well run season with a great championship awards program and presentation. All races had pretty good attendance and luckily, 2007 saw a minimum of lost aircraft. I hope the minimal losses will give the 2008 season even better participation.
Rantoul and Ohio started a good championship points battle in F1GT, F1 and Unlimited. There were also some record and near record times posted in F1GT and particularly in F1 as Kenny McSpadden and Randy Ritch swapped the record fast time back and forth, at Ohio. It was very interesting since Randy is flying Ed Rankin’s new AR6 Endeavor airframe with a Fred French prepared GT80, and Kenny is using his trusty GR7 with a Scott Baker prepared GT80. Two very different airframe and engine setups that are very competitive. Kenny proved he is still the man to beat, however, as he clinched the world championship again at the final in Parker, sometime on Saturday.
F1GT is a great class and very competitive with a great turn out at all three races. I think this class is the place to really hone the skills required in giant scale racing. The airplanes are so evenly matched that being consistent and prepared with a good caller and crew, is the only way you stand a chance of making the gold round. Mike Tallman also clinched the F1GT championship title early at Parker for his 2nd championship in a row, in this ultra competitive class.
I am very happy to see the Unlimited class growing over the past few years with new pilots such as Tim Sparks, Larry Sutherland, Peter Goldsmith and Don Corum. Don will be one to watch in 2008 since he is really getting his big Herby powered bearcat dialed in. I know there will be other newcomers to the crowd-favorite unlimited class this coming year. In 2007 the “mouse motored” unlimiteds proved that they could hang with the big bore rat motored teams. Tom Keating, Peter Goldsmith and Team JR Racing have been developing the DA150 as a viable unlimited power plant for 2 years. The reliability and light weight of this engine along with Tom’s very light and slippery Stilletto airframe, paid off in 2007 allowing him to clinch the Unlimited Championship title at Parker. I personally know that Tom and crew, (yours truly) have their sites set on setting a world record run in unlimited in 2008! A monumental task for the little DA150!! (Yes, we actually did some engine testing in my driveway in an early January heat wave of 43 degrees with snow on the ground!)
The other classes such as Bi-plane have seen sporadic participation in 2007 but all race venues will be glad to run the biplane and AT6 classes, if the minimum number of entries are present. So bring ‘em on!!
I also want to add that one of my favorite times during all race weekends are the after-hours socializing. Whether it’s sitting around “bench racing” and watching the sunset at the Team JR tent or enjoying the great hospitality at the Team Extra tent with Joyce’s delicious lunches, dinners and cocktail hour too, it’s all good stuff. The greatest thing is that you can walk around and visit anybody’s pit after the racing is over and have great conversations and joke around and have a drink or a cookie or fly a foamie or whatever. These special times of friendship and camaraderie are something we should convey to newcomers to our sport as much as anything else.
New rules…old rules…
I am happy to say that the current rules are working just fine and there will be no major changes for this upcoming season. However, I would like to see one procedure change brought up to vote. In F1GT and AT6 where we randomly select one of the five gold contestants for a complete engine tear down, is unfair. I (and others) feel that the first place airplane should be the one subject to teardown and if the 1st place engine is found to be illegal then we go to the 2nd place engine and do the same. We will keep going until we find a legal engine in the gold race… you get the idea. I don’t think anybody has an illegal engine but there is no reason the 5th place guy should have to remove his engine for teardown because he was randomly selected, if the random guy in 5th place has an illegal engine what would that prove? If nobody is cheating, this change shouldn’t affect anybody…right?
Also, the removal of fins on F1GT engines in order to fit inside cowls will be enforced for newly designed aircraft in 2008. The rules are pretty clear on this and even though removing fins does not improve performance, it is still illegal, pursuant to the rules. This is directed towards airframe designers who expect their airplane to be able to be used in F1GT. Please make the engine of choice fit before you make your molds!!! I know getting the stock GT80 into the ProudBird without any thing sticking out, is nearly impossible without shaving fins and/or mounting the motor inverted. Please plan your new projects accordingly!! The use of prop extensions can help most situations and is highly recommended. Otherwise, you may have to let the fins stick out or make the cheek cowls bigger and still maintain scale outline, i.e., no blisters! (Not fun!)
Sundowner rules
The Sundowner rules have been revised for 2008. Basically, the engine option has been opened up to include many more readily available sport engines. There is also a requirement for the pilot to step down or move up from the class if and when a pilot has won the championship or 3 gold races in a row in 1 year. We have taken restrictions off of the props and fuel, as well. We have to remember that this class is designed strictly to introduce the average sport pilot to USRA and encourage the move into other USRA classes. Most new pilots start complaining that everybody else’s plane is faster than theirs and if they had that “other” engine, they would be winning. In reality, the reason why “newbies” are not doing well and not going as fast, is because they are not flying a tight and smooth line and are getting zeros for cuts or no starts or breaking the airplane on landing, etc.
Additionally, the USRA does not want to monitor props and fuel for this class and risk neglecting our true passion - GIANT Scale racing. We should try and get fellow pilots involved in the Sundowner class so that they can try GSR and learn our procedures and rules and experience the thrill of racing with our group, with minimal risk and investment. The new rules will not shut out the current airplane/engine combos. The new rules will draw more entries that have a serious interest in our sport. The revised rules have been submitted to the board and will be posted as soon as they are approved.
There has also been much interest in electric powered Sundowners. We will be working on specs for this, too. Electric powered aircraft are so hot right now we felt this will bring much media interest to our sport. If anybody wants to race a Sundowner with electric power, it will be strictly for demonstrational purposes until the electric rules can be finalized.
AMA Convention 2008
I attended the AMA convention this year and helped work the USRA booth on Saturday and Sunday. We had numerous raffle prizes to give away, thanks to Horizon Hobby, Mike Luvara at RCATS and Tru Turn. We had Kenny’s championship GR7 on display along with Larry Sutherland’s Miss Ashley. Much thanks to Holly, Ralph C., Larry Sutherland, Martin Treat, Kmac, Scott Hanbury, Travis Flynn, Craig Greening and especially Mike Tallman who spent the majority of the weekend at the USRA booth. Convention goers showed good interest in our sport with the main question of “Where is the west coast race going to be?” Many current and former USRA pilots paid us a visit throughout the weekend.
Of course, we all went to the kart track Saturday night for a little friendly competition. We ended up with a total of 25 or so people from USRA, Dave and Brian from Desert Aircraft, Peter Goldsmith, Kim Payne and Shannon Dolce from Horizon and others. Everybody ran 1 practice session, 1 qualifying session and then the top dogs split up into a gold and silver final. Kenny won the Gold final and I took the Silver final. The track operators didn’t even bother showing the “no bumping” signs when we ran our heats, it would have done no good! It was my first karting experience and a great time was had by all. Ohhhh - if I only had 1 or 2 more practice sessions!! I’ll be in the gold next year for sure. By the way, my new cart track nickname is “bruiser” given to me by Shannon, sorry again Shannon - I swear it was unavoidable!!
High Flight Magazine
I did an article on the USRA for the IMAA magazine High Flight. It is focused on the final championship race at Parker in 2007 and features our 2007 points champions in F1GT, F1 and Unlimited. It is about 500 words and I sent them about 12 pictures courtesy of Mike Brown. It should be in the spring issue. IMAA also asked if any of the USRA members could do some technical articles on subjects such as engine tuning, lightweight composite building techniques, radio/linkage installation, etc. They realize that even though the majority of their market base are sport pilots, the way we do things can be beneficial to the sport pilot, too. After all, if it will work in one of our racers then it will surely work in a sport or scale application. If you have a tech article in mind, let me know and I will get you in touch with the editor. They said they would probably publish a short tech article in every issue if we supplied them.
2008 race schedule
The 2008 race schedule is as follows:
June 26-29, Rantoul, Illinois
August 14-17, Ashtabula, Ohio
End of October, Race venue TBD
The 3rd race of the season will happen; it’s just a matter of where it will be. Parker is still a possibility along with several other sites. Hopefully, we will have race #3 finalized within a couple months. If any body has any suggestions for a race site, please notify me or the West coast rep, Craig Greening. We could possibly hold a race in Texas in October if nothing is finalized in the west.
USRA yearly dues
Kelley will be mailing the 2008 dues renewal forms by the end of January. They'll be pre-printed with your information. Just make any updates to the form and mail it back to Kelley at the address on the envelope. We’ve extended the deadline to the end of February – but please send in your dues for 2008 as soon as possible. Hope you all had a good Christmas and are hard at work on your 2008 race planes!!
Chris Justus
President