For several months, Mike Hazel and I have been trying to arrange for a continuation of the Northwest Regionals as we have always known it. Several sites have been looked at, and we finally zeroed in on the Salem, Ore., Airport.
Ever optimists, for a while we thought we would be able to put on a full Regionals on that site. Ultimately, we were forced to face reality. Even though the airport management gave us permission to use space for two circles on the tarmac, we were defeated by the logistics of crossing the fence into the active airport (security guards, periodically making way for cargo planes, lack of parking, etc.) and the difficulty of cramming a contest that has used seven circles down into four circles.
Therefore, we have made the hard decision to go a different direction for 2014.
Yes, there will be a Memorial Day Weekend contest at Bill Riegel Model Airpark in Salem, but it won't be the all-events Regionals as in the past. The new contest will be the Northwest Stunt and Combat Championships. For stunt and combat, it will be pretty much just like the traditional Regionals. Unfortunately, we will not be able to host speed, racing, carrier or scale.
However, Mike does plan to host a major speed and racing meet in Salem on June 27-29; we're hoping that will take the place of the Regionals for those events. We're not sure about carrier, but there's a possibility that carrier could be run in conjunction with that contest if the carrier folks are interested; that would be a matter of getting the deck to Salem and organizing that part of the event.
It's with great regret that we suspend the full Regionals for 2014; the loss of the Eugene site was just too much for us to overcome. We hope everyone will be understanding about this change, and support the contests that we are planning to host to replace the Regionals as well as we can.
A flyer and entry forms for the stunt/combat meet will be online soon in the Flying Lines Where the Action Is section.
Topic: NW Regionals change of status (Read 3066 times)