The start of a three-plane heat in 424-class RC Pylon racing.
By Tim Lampe
The day went as expected. Although competition wasn’t scheduled to begin until 10:00 a.m., I believe we got going closer to 9:00 after the pilot’s meeting. Also as expected, the weather was warm and humid with plenty of sun. However, there were also periods of cloud cover and the occasional light breeze to give us a respite. The weather definitely could have been worse. After the day’s competition, there was the trophy presentation and more test flying with the poker chip system. In-spite of the ominous clouds forming on the horizon, there was plenty of test flying had by all who wanted to get in a run before the rain, which didn’t start until around 9:00 p.m. It is raining as I write, but it's just a gentle rain and is welcome. I can hear Fourth of July fireworks all around me in the background.
For 424 (Sport Quickie 500) today, we did three-plane heats with racehorse start. There was some, but little carnage, with the occasional crash, but I’m don’t recall any mid-air collisions. At the end of seven rounds, it was Jim Nikodem and Cory Paine tied for first, resulting in a flyoff. Jim was flying electric and Cory was flying glow. If I recall correctly, Cory took the lead, but Jim was slowly closing the gap. Then Cory cut a pylon, surely handing Jim the win. However, on about lap 8, Jim’s plane slowed significantly, allowing Corey to easily get past and take the win!
Back in the pits, I thought that surely Jim had inadvertently slipped in a discharged battery, but it turns out there was some kind of faulty wire connection between his motor and ESC, causing a total loss of power.
When it was all said and done, we had a pretty good day of competition and were able to get in a good number of rounds. Tomorrow it’s on to EF1.
