I was rummaging around in a box of old stuff, and came across this old thing from the Houston Prop Twisters contest in 1967. I was, and still am, primarily a combat flier, but in those days there was really only one combat event, and most of the combat guys also flew Rat. This brings back a whole bunch of memories.
I had built a rat kitted by Riley Wooten’s Flite Line Products. I think it was called a Quickie Rat. I had a K&B 40 with a Dykes ring, and the combo turned out to be reasonably competitive. This was the summer I turned 18, and me and my friend Colin set out to be rat racers. The 100 mile rat race was an unofficial event run at several local contests at the end of the day, after combat and everything else was done. It was 1400 laps, and they ran it all at once, with several circles and at least 3 up in each circle. We had fitted a large tank, and were doing about 100 laps per tank.
We were doing really well until about the 4th pit stop, when a somewhat rough landing knocked loose our outboard wing skid, and with it our tip weight. We did not notice this problem until the ensuing takeoff resulted in the dreaded torque roll. The plane did a quick snap roll and cartwheeled toward the center of the circle, but fortunately stopped before it got there.
We got laughed at a bit, but also got some kudos and encouragement from the older guys because we had our act together until disaster struck. I went off to college that fall, and was out of competition for several years. When I got back into the hobby, there were multiple combat events, and I haven’t raced since. This event was incredibly fun. I’d love to see it revived, perhaps with super slow equipment.