The NATS are over for another year. Not sure what to say. I think about it in terms of highs and lows. That's the way Muncie is at the NATS.
The reality is this is the gathering of the best pilots in North America. There are no easy heats and when you get to the finals you have to let it all out.
Why hold back?
Roy finished Q40 qualifying this morning with some bad luck. After a perfect day yesterday, Roy ran into bad air in his first race this morning. <crap> I really hate that bad air. He spread the Supercat that went fast in Japan across the Muncie pavement. He skipped his last round and got out the backup Supercat. Roy still qualified for the final.
I had two good wins this morning in my two remaining rounds of qualifying. The Sweet-V was running smooth and running fast. I actually had the second fastest time of my qualifying matrix at 1:04.
Mike Tallman also qualified for the finals. Mike is the third member of team "Ground Pounders"
The finals began and all stops were pulled. 28 of the fastest guys lined up for the Q40 national championship. It was fast. It was furious. It was exciting. After the six rounds of finals, AJ Seaholm was national champion. Second place was Mike Helsel. Third was Stephen Vaclav.
Fast time was earned by Matt Fehling flying Nelson and Strega with a 1:02.21
Roy planted another Supercat at "Canadian Corner" due to bad air once again. Roy was out after three rounds.
I had a couple of third place finishes in the finals due to a couple of cuts at pylon #1 in quite gusty strong wind coming from pylon #1. I was cutting on the first turn after takeoff due to the longer count. I got that straightened out and then blew a crankshaft in round 3. I guess it was due. An older crank and a new top end don't mix. This resulted in a zero.
I threw in my back up motor and dialled it in for the next round. I had a helluva race going with Mike Helsel. We ran about five laps together wing tip to wing tip. I stayed low and Mike stayed above. I didn't want to move and cause a mid-air so I just stayed low. Problem was that I got lower with each consecutive lap. I came around pylon #3 at about 2' above the ground. My plane crossed the line and crashed on the side of it.
Mike Tallman finished in 13th position out of 28 finalists.
That was the end of the Nats for us. Q40 qualifying and the finals were the most fun.
EF-1 was great and has a lot of potential. I hate Quickie…
Two helmet cam videos of the Q40 flyoffs for 4th place and for 9th place.
4th Place between Dub Jett, Mathew Fehling and Bryan Blanchard
9th place between Tim Yousey and Steve Baker
I didn't take any photos as I was too busy picking up airplane parts. Robert Vess has lots of pictures from the "Vess-cam" at the NMPRA forum:
Also there is the NATS News. Scott Causey took some great photos during the week. Check out NATS News here:
See the links for July 15 through to 17th
Randy
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