The weather forecast was for light rains that may have come through before 8 AM but I never saw any. When I arrived around 0830, our host Bob Bast the president of the Southern Indiana Flying Eagles club was waiting and I assisted him in setting up the pylons for our event.
As flyers arrived and got a few practice laps in, I met with the course workers and got everything ready for the race.
If you aren’t familiar with the SIFE model site it is in the Northwest corner of the Freeman Field airport in Seymour, Indiana. This airport has history back to WW2 when it was a training base for pilots. It has a very nice museum documenting its time as a military base and post war evaluation of captured military aircraft. I have many flights into and out of the airfield with my Cessna as well. The museum is worth the trip!
This is the first time in several years we have raced at this venue and it is one of the best model sites in Indiana. Blessed with wide open flying areas and short beans in the adjacent field we were set to race!
Races were in the two classes Bronze and Silver based on type of engines being used.
The Bronze guys didn’t disappoint, they were experienced racers. On the first race it became apparent with the combination of sun angle, low clouds and flat light the planes caught the racers out providing only a silhouette of the plane. They soon figured out what was up and down and the pilots got on with the task.
Silver race planes went faster but the racing was just as fierce with Clint finding the rare Evolution .46 that didn’t break and twisted his APC 9x6 propellers to RPM’s I’ve never seen before.
After we completed racing Bob and his SIFE crew cooked up some hotdogs and lunch was served. For desert we had a “Death By Chocolate” birthday to celebrate my anniversary provided by Tim Porter and friends. Thank you all very much!
After six rounds of racing the results found a tie in the top spot in Bronze between David Poland who has reigned as king of the hill for several seasons and Tim Porter who has made great strides in his racing over the year. The nod went to David as he also had fast time.
David is just recovering from back surgery so we weren’t sure he would have the energy to complete the races but he prevailed! By the way racing is good rehabilitation!
Silver had Clint Seyer win the event, only dropping one race to Matt in the 6 races with fast time in windy conditions. Followed by Matt Fornefeld and Tim Sparks in third with a brand new LA Racer he scrambled to assemble after his return from the Reno Air races the weekend before.
Our last race of the season is just around the corner in Galveston, Indiana on October 16th. I’m not sure why we had lower participation at this race but I look forward to all the racers coming out and participating and support our grass root racing. There are some excellent racers here in Indiana and we can’t thrive without your participation in the next race and into 2022!
Bronze:
David Poland 15 1:47*
Tim Porter 15 1:51
Ned Gochenour 6 2:06
Silver:
Clint Seyer 17 1:36*
Matt Fornefeld 12 1:38
Tim Sparks 7 1:41
fast time
I want to welcome two new racers for the season Kit Gerhardt who is a lifelong modeler and young Var Brynildssen new to model racing.
Sparky
PS I will have a LA40 ARF available for sale at the Galveston $170 cash and a few bronze engines for an additional $10 with the purchase of the plane.