It took a couple of days but I finally got my van emptied and will start cleaning and putting away........ sometime.
The speed events at Brodak are quite unique in that there are 3 days to fly. We took advantage of that and worked hard to get our combos working. Mostly on Monday and Tuesday. Thankfully we had a good crew of timers for the whole time. They were very close on the watches. We had one bottle of fuel that all Perky's used and another for the Foxes.
I would like to thank the St. Louis guys for tweaking the rules this year. It was nice to know that no one had a bored & stroked 'monster motor' and all of our stuff ran faster than last year without the pipes! The final results were produced after a number of flights adjusting needles and trying different props.
Results: Al Ferraro 112.32
T Schaefer 109.69
H Nelson 108.79
J Vigani 106.82
B Whitney 94.86
After last years spectacular performance by Bob 'Pinky' Whitney and Dave Hallas in Perky I knew it was time to try and up my game a bit. Although my 1976 Rossi Mkll runs well I knew that it would not touch the more modern motors. In the offseason I pondered the choices. W&H use Nelsons. Al & Vigani like the Fora. Nelson runs Fox exclusively (Ha ha) and I know some of the midwest guys use OPS. So I chose the Nova Rossi because it is available at a reasonable price and has tons of power. We did a lot of testing in the spring with different props and 2 different motors before I settled on a combo for Brodak. Al flew the Ross special with Fora. Jim Vigani had a new, fabulous looking Perky with a Super Fora. The Florida crew had (I think) two Nelsons and a Mklll. Henry got to fly 3 different planes with his own motors on the front. The final results were not completed until later on Wednesday. Results: Schaefer 115.87
Hallas 112.57
Vigani 110.57
Nelson 110.50 !
Ferraro 108.50
Osborn 102.97
Smith 98.07
Whitney 96.08
The sportsman race was well attended ( 9 ) but there was some confusion among the participants about the rules. Despite that all who entered got to fly and enjoyed themselves. I think Paul is going to run a sportsman event next year and will 'tweak' the rules some for a bit more parity. The results and commentary are contained here in other posts.
I would like to thank Paul and John Brodak for giving all of us participants the opportunity to get the most out of our planes and would encourage all who might like to try a speed event to come out to The Brodak next year!
Are there any pictures out there?? TS