I have been told that as you get older, time goes by faster. If that is true then I must be getting very old, as this year flew by (no pun intended). The 4th Annual Blue Water River Run at Parker is now complete. Parker had a record attendance with nearly 70 airplanes taking to the air. Once again Denny and Barb did a great job! With the help of the Colorado River Indian Tribe and the airport staff the Parker race went off without a hitch. The Parker Airport is a great flying site and with the support of the airport operators and the Blue Water Casino we are all looking forward to bigger and better things in the coming years.
As always, the racing was intense and spectacular! Like Rantoul and Ashtabula, there was an unusually high lose rate with two of the most spectacular mid-airs in recent history (sorry Craig, Mark, Jake, Larry, Tom and Tim). Looking back at the entire year we all know this type of thing swings like a pendulum and next year will more than likely be just the opposite (let’s hope). With the higher than normal airplane counts the heat races were as competitive as we have seen all year as the racers pushed hard to make the trophy races. The Gold winners included John Lockwood in Dominator, Scott Hanbury in AT-6, John Lockwood in Bi-plane, Joseph Zimmerman in F1-GT, Scott Baker in F1 and Fred French in Unlimited. Congratulations to all the Gold Trophy winners.
Once again many of the racers and their families had just as much fun off the race course at Parker as on. Tom Easterday was gracious enough to bring out his drag race Christmas tree and invite us all to the casino Thursday night for some socializing and of course racing! Denny and Barb supplied the “Softball juice” and chili dogs were served up by the casino. Tom and Kelley administered a single elimination race format with each pair racing the best two out of three. At the end of many rounds of competition it was Marty Treat taking home the men’s class and Kelley taking the women’s class. The overall was taken by Kelley when she spanked Marty pretty bad! To cap the night off Tom provided all of the attendees with rubber band powered airplanes. If you were not in attendance you missed dozens of adults sitting on the ground trying to assemble their airplanes, what a sight! As soon as the airplanes were assembled there was a countdown and we all had to launch our airplanes with the goal to have the last airplane flying. Needless to say the sight of probably 50 airplanes all flying in the air was no less than spectacular. The winner was Gus Greening (Craig Greening’s dad) all the way from Australia! Then for at least 30 minutes later airplanes were still flying through the air. I am not sure if it was the fact that we love to fly or many of us felt an attachment to our childhood. What was really nice about this event was that as many wives and girlfriends were involved having just us much fun as us “racers”. On Saturday night the fun continued as the Blue Water Casino, Denny and Barb hosted their annual banquet. The food was excellent and the door prizes outstanding!
At the end of our normal awards ceremony the year end points championships were announced with John Lockwood taking Bi-plane, Mike Tallman taking F1-GT, Mike McConville taking F1 and Fred French taking Unlimited. Craig Greening was also crowned rookie of the year. The championship battles raged throughout the year with many of the earlier contenders experiencing trouble making the titles up for grab to the very end. Bi-plane was an unusual class this year as John was able to take the title by only racing at Parker. John had a perfect weekend and due to Tim’s unfortunate crash early in the weekend, John squeaked out the championship. F1-GT was a battle that everyone thought Scott had in the bag, but due to some bad luck at Ashtabula and then again at Parker it was just not meant to be, but in the spirit of competition Scott and the entire Speed Demons team battled to the very end. Scott went so far as to install a completely new wing in the middle of the race only to lose the entire plane. Congratulations to Scott and Mike on a fight well fought! F1 was nearly as dramatic as Mike lost his airplane in practice on Thursday. Mike had to re-enter the event with a GT airplane to gather as many points as possible and if not for the unfortunate luck of Jerry Bradley the F1 title could have gone either way. Congratulations to Mike and Jerry on a great year of racing! Unlimited was the Fred French swan song. If you talk to aging athletes they always say they want to go out on top. Well Fred could not have done it any better! After nearly running an entire perfect season, Fred wrapped up his championship. Fred and Lynda we all will miss you on the race course but hope to see you at the events promoting the highest level of competition! Congratulations Fast Freddie!
This has been a great year for giant scale racing; the competition as been outstanding, the camaraderie is at an all time high and we have received much needed media coverage. In addition to the excellent exposure we are receiving on the “Flying Giants” we site we recently were covered in the January issue of Fly R/C. With this article we now have been featured in three major industry magazines with the highlight being the cover story for Model Aviation. Once again I need to send out a special thanks to Steve Goodreau of Horizon Hobbies for coordinating all the media coverage at Rantoul, Thanks Steve! We all look forward to continuing support from the media so please take the time to sit down and let the editors know. All of you in which I have an email address for were recently sent links to all the editors for these magazines, if you did not receive an email that means that I don’t have it. If you would like to receive futures reports, the surveys, rules updates, etc. electronically from me please send your email address to me and I will add you to my membership list.
The board was able to hold a meeting Wednesday night before the race with all but Pete and Tony in attendance. Being that this was to be the last board meeting of the year we began our discussions of possible rule changes. Due to the time available we obviously could not finalize all proposals so we are currently doing that as this report is being written. I don’t believe there will be any earth shattering changes that will require major changes to new or existing airplanes, but all changes are important so please make sure you get a copy. We are hoping to have everything finalized around the AMA convention in January so keep an eye out.
The AMA Convention in Ontario, CA will be the next event on the calendar. The USRA will once again have a booth set up. If you are going to be in the area and would like to help out by hanging out and talking to the convention goers please let me know as soon as possible so we can get you a badge.
Lastly, Kelley will be sending renewals this week (December 6), so please get them back to Kelley ASAP.
Everyone have a safe and happy holidays. See you next year!
Fly fast, turn left……………………………………
President