SCSR | Current Events & Info

I’m pleased to let all know that 2010 is well-planned and should be a stellar year for slope racing in So Cal. We have drawn from the creative minds of the 2010 boardmembers to implement some new ideas that should make for a fun, and successful year of racing. Our focus will be on growing the club, and having fun at every event. It should be a banner year. If you are on the fence about trying racing, then this will be a great year to take the plunge.

One thing that will be different than in years past is that we will have “backup dates” scheduled for many of the races. This should accomplish many things:
1. If the weather looks iffy prior to the race, the CD may elect to cancel the race, and instead rely on the backup date. This will save everyone time, gas money, and the pain of getting skunked by a no wind situation.
2. If the scheduled date has good conditions, the backup date can be used by SCSR for whatever is deemed interesting for the club- F3F Clinics, Man on Man races, etc.
3. Scoring at the end of the year should be very easy because there should be plenty of scoring events with the added backup dates, if they are needed.

Another thing that is new this year, is a Prize Raffle. That’s right, REAL prizes!
We have dipped into SCSR funds to buy some prizes for the end of the season. These will NOT be awarded to the fastest flyers, but rather to random, race attending, raffle winners.
This is the way it will work:
Every race that you attend, you will receive a virtual raffle ticket. MAKE SURE THAT YOU SIGN INTO THE STARTING LIST! The more races you attend, the better the chance you will have to win. Since the more you race, the better chance you have, a person may end up winning multiple prizes.
I won’t give away just what the prizes will be at this time, but let me just say that the grand prize will be something that the lucky person will be able to burn some fast F3F laps with….. And the other prizes are nothing to sneeze at either!

It is also our intent to have t-shirts available later in the year. They will be at a very low cost for the people attending races. That will be something that I’ve looked forward to having for a while. So look for that around mid year, possibly sooner.

Lastly, we would like to have more after race dinners and BBQ’s. We will wait for the weather to warm up, and then the time will be right. Mentions of 6-foot submarine sandwiches, and/or pizza parties have been heard, so bring your hunger.

I hope that I see all of our “newbies” from the last year or two, our veteran racers, and some more new racers this year at the slopes. 2010 should be a great year for all of the SCSR members.

Happy Landings,
Target
PS. DON’T FORGET TO RENEW YOUR AMA!

On Saturday, 11 Board Members and members met to make club decisions and set the competition schedule for 2009. Here are the results of that effort:

2009 Calendar–We will have 8 F3F events counting towards the 2009 California Cup series, with the best 4 results for each flier counting toward the final points. We will have 8 Club events in F3F, and including the 8 Cup events ,we have a total of 16 possible comps for points, with the pilots’ 9 best results counting toward final points. We will fly one new site in OC. We will have 2 F3F New Flier clinics with free admission and a low-pressure, non-competition format to introduce intermediate sport fliers to the program. The first will be Dec 20 in conjunction with the Polar Bear Swapmeet and Event. There will be one MoM event with 60 in. foam or glass planes, and, of course, the 5th annual Grass Mountain 2-Day Unlimited Slope Race, this year on Aug 8 and 9. A final schedule will be published as soon as we can confirm availability of coastal sites on the days we have picked.

The Treasurer’s Report showed we increased the bank account by $545, largely due to net profits from the Cal Cup and the Grass Mtn.2-Day.

We will have to update the member list around the end of the year as part of the AMA Charter Club submission, so if you have changed addresses, email contacts or AMA number, please let Secretary Dan Field know. Incidentally, you become a member by flying in our competitions, it’s that simple.

Communications: Brandon Monte will work with webmaster Nathan Woods to transition responsibility for updating the club website. We all affirmed that next year we will try harder to include photos with the comp results.

Purchases: We have 3 sets of club F3F gear, and at least 2 private sets, so we are in good shape. We will purchase 2 back-up buttons for one of our sets. We also will purchase an accurate sighting compass to aid in setting the courses as accurately as possible. Finally, we will buy a second laser range finder to go with one of the club sets, as a back-up.

Course setting: During the year we will attempt to set a perfect course at the various sites, and then establish permanent markers so that it will be repeated each event.

Safety: Always has been an important part of the program, but we will reemphasize it , particularly at events where the public may be nearby. The CD will be empowered to interrupt the comp should it be seen that adequate separation no longer exists.

Election: The nominated club officers for 2009 won in a landslide. They are:
President: Chris “Target” Behm
VP: Warren Day
Secretary: Dan Field
Treasurer Bob Meitzner
Competition Director: Kyle Paulson
Member-At-Large: Brandon Monte
Member-At-Large: Mark Canfield
Member-At-Large: Woody Rackliffe
Chairman: Bill DelHagen

Thank you all for flying our events and supporting slope racing in Southern California.

Bill DelHagen, President

Hello F3F’ers

With today’s Pt Fermin in the books, the first CalCup Series is a Final. For its inaugural debut with a schedule of your best 5 of 8 comps it seems to have be a success. Not to mention the finale also included a damn good BBQ which since we were all hungry was a great success. Thanks to all who chipped in bringing this and that to make it happen. Special thanks to Bad Bob who had to haul in the BBQ itself and Kyle for coming up with the idea.

It was unfortunate that the wind gods stayed home for two of the eight scheduled comps. Today was iffy for a while with dense fog at times with visibility near ,,, well not very far things were not looking good. During most of the waiting time it was inviting and calling to us to come out and play but it would have just been risky to say the least despite a nice breeze. We were finally under way and had to stop again after round one for quite some time. Then we had a bit of Sun, not much but it was Sun. I am sure that Chris will have a write up on today’s event shortly.

Congrats to all the Top Five finishers who went home smiling with some very nice trophies courtesy of SoCal Sloperacers and the efforts of Warren Day to come up with them. Special Note to point out young Kyler Paulson’s position who just kept improving all year.
1 Kyle Paulson 4976.08
2 Tom Copp 4907.48
3 Target 4824.14
4 Bill DelHagen 4601.54
5 Kyler Paulson 4586.65

Looking over the results and with the unlucky scrapping of two scheduled comps, we had a situation of only the top six having the minimum five counters. IF we had of lost today due to the fog, we would have only got in the min. of five. There is nothing we could do about the losses, it’s just the way it is and when in the planning stages 5 of 8 with past luck we have enjoyed here in SoCal, all looked perfect. Not too many, nor too few and 3 extra chances to either improve or just to get in 5 counters. Certainly still a success, no where near a disaster but probably not as well as anyone would have liked.

So, I was wondering IF any improvements could be made for next year. Now would be the time to bring up any and all suggestions to make it even better than it was or we leave it alone and see what happens next year. Keep in mind the Goals of this series. We already have a SoCal Season Points with many more counting comps for those who can get out more. This Schedule was to bring out those who would like to get involved in a shorter series where there have a better chance to get in the minimum counters, plus to hopefully get more of our Northern Brothers to come on down and join in as well as San Diego pilots who also have to drive a fair distance.

No one foresaw such high fuel costs this year and for some our economy going in the tank. Looking down the list only a few NorCal pilots were able to make it. Notably Tim Bigley, Tim Cone and Ron Vann who all did very well in the comps they were able to make. San Diego fared a lot better but mainly due to Torrey Pines Two Day.

So what ideas are out there for next season? Maybe Five was too high or will be with the high fuel and economy not to be improved much any time soon. We want it to be high enough as one, we already have plenty of one dayers and then the long season points are still there. Where is the magic number, 4? 5 of 8 sounds perfect 3 sounds too few but.. Maybe we could try 4 counters next year and see. For the total, If 4 counters, 8 comps sounds too high giving a pilot too many chances to improve his position without some of the same competition from top pilots who can’t make 8 comps resulting in an unfair series. So maybe 4 of 7 and in light of this years skunks maybe we need some make up date of an 8th comp which would be on the calendar in advance but not used unless we were to lose say 2 comps still giving us 6 total. I would be ok if we got in 6 complete counting 4. 4 of 5 in would most likely still result in too few with the minimum counters.

Plan B - IF the goal is to put more emphasis on attracting Norcal pilots who seem to be having a resurgence in their own attendance. Might a schedule of 4 of 6 where 3 comps in Socal and 3 in NorCal work out. San Diego gets the Fixture ( we hope ) of the Torrey Pines two day ( I sure would like this event to go to 3 days,, hint hint Dave ) .

Also, with any luck Bill DelHaggen heard that Whitaker which is a good F3F hill might be opening up soon after being closed for like 3 or 4 years now. Scheduling a comp or two there provided wind conditions might help with driving.

That’s pretty much it from me, please chime in with anything you have in mind. Get it out there and lets take a look at it.

Nothing to do with the CalCup ( not that it couldn’t ) but.. I was thinking a Two Day comp on the same weekend where we do a coastal slope, WP or Fermin and on day two an Inland Slope like Grass Mtn where we have some who do better in Thermals and some do better with the consistency of the coast. Combine both days into one comp. Club Kahuna, Mr Top Dog, or what ever comp. We have purposely not raced on both Sat and Sun of the same weekend as many have family to hang with or maybe work. It wouldn’t be for everyone and a two day makes it a bit more attractive for a pilot who has to travel a ways. It wouldn’t really have to be part of any Season Points comps.

Over and out
Dan

Dead tired right now after 3 drives to Grass and countless hikes up and down the hill to land and fetch, but I want to get the results out.
We ran 69 separate races over the two days, generally 3-up on Sat., and Sunday, with some 2-ups on Sunday as two fliers did not return. Everyone flew everyone at least twice in the matrix, and with 21 flights per pilot, there was plenty of non-stop action. Wind in the AM was a bit sketchy, especially Sunday, but eventually most folks were close to full weight at the end. Most pleasing was the last-minute entry of two new slope racing Blood Brothers, Fred Sena and Doug Simpliciano.
We had extraordinary, and professional help running the event from Mike Hammers, Jimi Eich, Raul Odin and John Axen on the lights, and the bonus of John Peters and Dave Dawson running the Start and calling the lights for everyone. Thank you guys—fabulous job!
We must also thank our sponsors for the workers raffle: Tower Hobbies, Castle Creations, Soaring USA. The lucky winner of the Soaring USA Destiny moldie model was Mike Hammers.
So, Here are the final standings after 21 flights: Remember a perfect score would be 21, and all seconds would be 42, so the contest was tight the whole time.
1 Warren Day 29
2 Ray Kuntz 31
3 Tauno Kunuthia 33
4 Dave Bates 34
5 Bill DelHagen 36
6 Marty Hill 43
7 Fred Sena 56
8 Ted Kowalke 59
9 Billy Highfiels 76
10 Doug Simpliciano 103

Thank you all for a fine event and great flying.

P.S. The coveted Kowalke Award for the most artistic and needless act of plane destruction went to Dave Bates who found himself “flying” his competitor’s plane while circling to land and ended up having his Trinity disappear from everyone’s sight somewhere far, far to the southwest of the hill.

Bill DelHagen

Ten fliers and 5 helpers came together today to participate in the 4th annual running of the 2-Day. Wind cycled up mid-morning and between 1130AM and 515PM we ran 40 separate races of 3-up flying.. Hard to specify what the exact standing is as we ran out of time before the second round of 30 races was done. Nonetheless this is a hotly contested event with the top pilots closely spaced. Fred Sena, running his first Unlimited Man on Man with his Ceres, is learning the ropes quickly and was seen taking photos I hope we can post when it is all done.
We aim to start flying tomorrow around 10AM, concluding heat races between 330 and 4PM. We drew some interested spectators today and two newbies joined the Blood Oath Brotherhood.

Well, can you say challenging? The day started late with 14 pilots as we waited for conditions to build and for the wind direction to
correct it self to the slope. When if finally did, at about 2:30 it was still marginal at best….. maaayyyyybe 8-10mph for round 0 and
round 1. By the time round 2 and 3 came we had a good stiff drop in conditions to 8-9mph, 3.4 meters per second. Man was it tough!

By round 3, as the CD, I was checking the wind velocity every other pilot monitoring to see if it had dropped below the F.A.I. regulation
wind speed limit of 3.0 meters per second. It did not! I decided that as long as we don’t loose any planes and the wind stays above the
regulation limit we would continue. It was a tough call and some were not happy with my decision. I understand that but I believe I made
the right call. My thoughts were that if it was within the F.A.I. regulations…… The race must go on!
It was tough! VERY challenging! Our average times were 68-76 seconds in rounds 2, 3, and 4. A cut in these conditions cost you close to 10 seconds! OUCH! I had one in round two and decided to start waiting for the beeps from that point on. No more cuts for me!

A couple notable performances…….

Brandon Monte: flying for 3rd place winning not one round but flying very consistently, making the right ballast choices and flying
tight….. Very tight, all day long! Great job B!

Kyler Paulson: at age 12, beating the entire field by 4 seconds laying down the fastest time of the day up to that point. He flew
that round superbly well even if he was….old…..like the rest of us. Good round Kyler!

Mark Canfield: still a rookie taking 2nd place in very difficult flying conditions in both round 4 and round 6. Dude! That must have
felt good as a rookie! :)

Looking to improve the “safety factor” at White Point, we did! I had great feed back today on the safety measures I put in place today by
moving the base B pole man back 2 or 3 yards and down in the backside bowl. I carved out a nice flat spot with my handy dandy camping
shovel taking the base B pole man almost completely out of play compared to our old method of “Base B pole man target practice!” LOL!
It’s much better now. Thanks for the encouraging and support on that one. I have decided not to mention my 6 or 7 brain farts today by not starting the count down clock…. 4 of the times with Bill D….. sorry Bill! :)

Well by round 4 we dipped into sub 60 territory. Rounds 5 and 6 were all in the 50’s. Things felt like typical White Point and made for a
really nice end of day to a very long day. We had some great Mexican food later at Targets local spot right there in San Pedro. It was
good!

Results:
Kyle Paulson 4813.02
Target 4793.76
Brandon Monte 4777.84
Tom Copp 4710.75
Kyler Paulson 4661.51
Bill DelHagen 4632.74
Dave Bates 4594.12
Gary Legerton 4518.31
Bob Meitzner 4470.47
Mark Canfield 4447.70
Tim Bigley 1306.73
Adrian 1252.16
Ian G. 1207.77
Warren Day 999.66

So as you can see the racing was VERY close for the top 3 pilots. What a day! I made a comment I would like to share at the end of the
day. I said to Bill DelHagen, “I really think this was good for us all making us better pilots because of the challenging conditions.”
His response, “Yah, your right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it!” Very true Bill! Not what we would always want….. maybe never
again…. But! Next time, all who were there will be much more prepared for the next time! Today separated the men from the
boys….. I guess that means Kyler is now a man. LOL! Great job everyone!

Next and the last 2008 CALCUP:
Location: Point Fermin
CD: Chris Behm
Date: Saturday, September 27th
Start Time: TBD

We plan to have a BBQ after the event starting around 6ish. Plan to bring the family! We will have an award ceremony for the day’s event
and also for the overall CalCup Point series! It will be a great day. Mark your calendars now!

The BBQ: We will need volunteers for the following categories.
a) I will bring the hamburger patties.
b) Buns
c) Lettuce, catsup, mustard, etc.
d) Potato Salad
e) Chips
f) Drinks on Ice
g) Briquettes and litter fluid
h) Do the have BBQ pits at Fermin
i) If not we need a BBQ!
j) Did I forget anything?

Looking forward!
Kyle

All right!!! What a great day it turned out to be. Yes 14 pilots showed up to race and it appears all had a great time.

The weather did not start out very good, Bill and I got there at 9:30am or so and started setting up and others followed in around 10:00 at first the wind was light and coming from just about every direction and shifted about every 10 seconds. Then about 11:00 it started blowing a little harder all though it went from west to south to east and back again every couple of minutes. Most were wondering if we were going to fly at all. At about 11:30 Warren shows up, he was the last to come up the hill and pronounced on his arrival that he brought the wind, (he also brought the fastest times). Bill had gone out to test the wind at that same time and found it suitable. By 12:00 we were organized and ready to start racing. The zero round got everybody warmed up and we were on with the race. The thermal lottery seem to not be as bad the first 4 rounds, well I guess if you got air as I did you at least felt that way. ;-) after round 4 the wind kind of backed off and the thermal lottery became everyones desire to win. It was a tough lottery as the day grew to a close and I think everyone experienced at least one round. I was blessed with 4 rounds of no air. There were a few though that seemed to have the magic almost all day. Warren Dave, Bill and Joel seemed have pretty consistent times. Warren did very well, even though he grumbled a little at first over what he perceived as slow times while everyone else groaned at the fact that he was kicking butt. It appears that he is the winner.

I’m not sure what the fall out is as I have not loaded the times in the spread sheet yet. I will take care of that now and post the results as soon as it is completed. There was no major casualties today, I only remember two issues, Jim W. strip a servo gear, and I popped loose a flap servo. Mine was easy to fix, Jim’s unfortunately could not continue.

Everyone appeared to have had a good time as I left, so that is the real success of an event. See you all at the VRQ.

Bob M.

Well here is how it all worked out. Congrats to Warren D. for 1st. Dave B. for 2nd and Kyle for 3rd.

WOW, way to go Dave. I will get you next time. LOL Great flying Dave.

Position Pilots Name Model Total Score Normalized Score
1 Warren D. 6800.97 1000.00
2 Dave B. 6617.64 973.04
3 Kyle P. 6525.80 959.53
4 Bill D 6356.32 934.61
5 Rey H. 6253.47 919.49
6 Tim N. 6251.43 919.19
7 Klyer P. 6194.50 910.82
8 Alan L. 6110.98 898.54
9 Joel C. 6063.62 891.58
10 Bob M 6019.40 885.07
11 Fred S. 5940.24 873.44
12 Woody R. 5880.90 864.71
13 Warren P. 5050.74 742.64
14 Jim W. 2934.95 431.54

Well fellow race fans,
I am happy to report another great race at Torrey is in the books. We had 29 racers come out and test their skills amongst the best in the US. Paul Naton traveled the furthest from Pennsylvania, With Ron Vann and Tim Bigley coming in from the San Francisco bay area, as well as Joel Cagnon from Santa Barbara. We were joined by a few new F3F pilots Joe Rodrigues of TD fame, TPG president Parvis Kamiab, TPG raffle coordinator Alan ‘Moose’ Butler, local Mark Canfield, and perhaps Robert Lopez (not positive it was his first time). We held our Pilots meeting in the glider port’s office at 9:00 am on Saturday, and got round zero underway around 11:00 am. Conditions were consistently building, and by round 1 our last pilot in the roster Tom Copp of F3X.com fame threw down a blistering 40.80 second run. Time would later prove that to be the fast time of the contest. For a 29 pilot event, things were moving very quickly, finishing each round in less than an hour. We finished things up around 5:00pm, finishing 6 rounds (0-5). Saturday evening brought some light showers and clearing winds for Sunday. Flyable at sunrise, we had great air for our 10:15 am start. We finished our last round around 3:45 pm and gathered for awards presentation. We all knew who were going to stand at the podium. Tim Bigley was the consistent competitor, flying smoothly all weekend. Making no mistakes was good enough to earn him a 3rd place podium spot. Tom Copp seemed to have things all wrapped up after the absolute clinic he put on Saturday, but Kyle was coming on strong on Sunday. It was anyone’s guess. Kyle ended up sneaking away with the victory, by a mere .041% Great job Tom and Kyle. I learned allot from your guy’s performance.

So here are the scores,
1 P Kyle 9573.53
2 Copp 9569.65
3 Bigley 9424.06
4 Smith 9339.89
5 Cone 9291.80
6 L G 9114.21
7 Field 9089.37
8 Klein 8940.82
9 Paulson,Kyler 8887.21
10 Reel 8813.98
11 Vann 8756.63
12 Neja 8719.93
13 DelHagen 8624.05
14 Meitzer 8515.08
15 Monte 8458.07
16 Rackliffe 8430.82
17 B Bob 8414.10
18 Bates 8329.00
19 Harju 8216.11
20 Liberatore 8203.70
21 Jolly 8088.02
22 Seaman 7892.82
23 Cagnon 7823.61
24 Rodriguez 7718.65
25 C M 7344.03
26 B A 5468.89
27 N P 4185.53
28 Lopez 3817.36
29 Kamiab 2276.59

I am currently writing an article for RCSD, please send me your photos for addition to the article.

–
David Klein

Hey F3Fer’s

WoW! I used a GPS to get to White Point but I am not so sure that was really White Point. What a handful, up to 31 MPH, crossed and bumpy. Either you were dog slow, sometimes both directions or you were so fast, don’t blink as you now too long.

Congrats to go fast Kyle, Chris “Target” Behm and again Tim Bigley. Tim has come down twice this year and put the hurt on us SoCal pilots.

Full spreadsheet up soon.

Dan
aka Looking forward to Torrey.

1 K Paulson 6975.18
2 Target 6741.33
3 T Bigley 6616.30
4 T Copp 6554.97
5 W Day 6412.15
6 T Neja 6305.60
7 D Reel 6170.81
8 T Cone 6129.14
9 Woody R. 6106.82
10 R Harju 6086.90
11 K Paulson 6055.41
12 B DelHagen 6019.12
13 D Bates 5911.28
14 R Meistner 5847.64
15 Aaron 5702.64
16 J W. 5423.36
17 J Cagnon 5256.31
18 D Field 3509.54
19 Thomas 3346.43
20 Brandon 1785.89

SCSR: We held the inaugural event of 2008 at Parker, where the wind always shows up for us in January. Wind speed in the 30’s means flight times in the 30’s, and we all began with sub-40 runs as typical. As we figured, the wind strength tapered gradually towards the end of the day and times crept up into the mid-40’s.
Ten hardy souls turned out, dressed warmly and ready for action. We completed 15 runs plus a zero, so with two throw-outs the final results were as follows:

Position Pilots Name Total Score Normalized Score
1 Dan 12581.47 1000.00
2 Kyle 12561.49 998.41
3 Tim 12067.92 959.18
4 Warren 11813.96 938.99
5 Bill 11624.74 923.95
6 Target 11463.71 911.15
7 Kyler 11264.30 895.30
8 joel 11018.31 875.75
9 Bob M 4968.86 394.93
10 Brandon 3282.24 260.87

The normalized scores are the numbers used later on to compute year-end positions.

We awarded the 3 medals for the top fliers of 2007—Dan Field, third, Warren Day, second, and Kyle Paulson as the repeat trophy winner

Thanks to the fliers , who all pitched in with the equipment and the pole duty. We will return to Parker for an F3F on Nov 8, and on Feb 23 for the first 60 in. MoM event of the new season. The next scheduled F3F will be on Feb 16 at Fermin, with Chris Target Behm as the CD. See you there.

Bill DelHagen