6th annual Midswest slope challenging

Model Airplane News, Nov 1999 by Loud, Richard

WHAT DO YOU think of when you think of slope racing? More important, where do you think of? California ... Oregon Washington anywhere along the West Coast, right? Well, the Lincoln Area Soaring Society (LASS) of Lincoln, NE, introduces a handful of newcomers every year to a gem of a sloping site right in the heart of Kansas.

In the area around Wilson Lake in Russell County, hills and bluffs abound, and the wind blows almost all of the time. It is here that LASS holds its annual Midwest Slope Challenge.

PYLON RACING WITH A SLANT

Wilson Lake was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s, mainly for flood control and water conservation. Because it's in an area with relatively few large lakes, it is also a center for recreation. There are five parks around its 100-mile shoreline; and of particular interest to outof-town slope-heads may be the overnight camping facilities with free, hot showers. What better way to spend a weekend than camping at the base of one of the best slopes in the country?

Held on May 14 and 15 on the hills overlooking Wilson Lake, this year's event was the sixth in a series of very successful annual slope-- racing meets. At its inception, the Midwest Slope Challenge was centered on two very popular models from Sig*: the Ninja and the Samurai. In recent years, it has grown to include unlimited-class racing and EPP foamie combat. This year, as a result of suggestions at last year's post-race banquet, we saw the addition of foamie racing and a 60-inch One Design race class (ODR)

FOAMIE FUN

Last year, the group voted to include more events for EPP foamies along with the typical combat event, so Friday was set aside for a sort of a foamie biathlon that combined combat with racing. The combat portion was a typical mass-launch melee in which kills are scored by knocking other aircraft to the ground while maintaining control of your own. In each round, competitors had 5 minutes to score as many kills as possible.

The racing portion was a timed enduro event with 5 minutes to complete as many laps as possible around two pylons spaced about 20 yards apart. The difference here from typical slope racing is that the aircraft had to actually fly around each pylon, passing below its top. If you think about it, that means flight paths cross at a point along the course, and midairs are bound to happen. That's what foamies are for, right?

On this day, the wind was howling up to 30mph, which heightened the combat action and provided ample time for recovery after a hit. Consequently, very few kills were recorded. The wind also was a factor in the enduro, as many planes had difficulty penetrating the wind down at the level of the pylons and thus couldn't complete more than a few laps.

This was a combined event, so the scores for both the melee and the enduro were combined to determine the winners. Each enduro lap counted as one point, and each combat kill counted as five points. When the dust settled, Steve Dworsky was in fourth place with 15 points flying a Dave's Aircraft Works* (DAW) Me 163; Wayne Henning captured third place with 18 points, flying a Bowman* Roughneck; I came in second with 26 points, flying a DAW FoaME 109, and Paul Wright took home first place with 31 points flying a Trick R/C* Razor.

BATTLE OF THE NINJAS

We woke up on Saturday to cloudy skies and the threat of rain--leftovers from an overnight thunderstorm. But there was wind, and plenty of it. When we showed up at the slope at 9 a.m., racing planes were already in the air. Charlie Richardson of CR Performance Aircraft* in Vista, CA, and his factory pilot Paul Naton from Corvallis, OR, were already walking back to the pit area with their racers after beating most of the crowd to the site for some early-morning practice.

At 10 a.m., the LASS members had set up the racecourse, and Paul Wright, the event director, called the pilots' meeting with Alden Shipp as the race director for the day.

First up was the Sig Ninja class, in which planes were limited to a stock Ninja wing planform and a fuselage with a stock Ninja outline and shape. Other modifications were allowed, including ballast and rounded and strengthened fuselages; one entry even sported a V-tail. It's not a particularly fast flying bird, and the entrylevel Ninja class was initially intended to bring more participants to events.

The Ninja was flown in heats of four set up in a matrix. After all heats had been completed, the four pilots with the most wins flew head to head to determine first through fourth places. The top four finishers were Jim Horton in fourth, Todd Martin in third and Wayne Henning in second. Linde Troiani pulled off first place in his first ever slope race.

Although not a particularly high-speed race, the Ninja class did offer a few dramatic moments. As Paul Wright said at the pilots' meeting, "The Ninja race is often won by attrition rather than speed; preserving your aircraft may be the key to finishing at the top." Yes, some midairs took a few planes out of the running, but the most memorable moment was Dave Garwood's race in the pits to repair his shattered fuselage with CA and strapping tape after an unexpected encounter with the hillside. It looked like a scene out of a war movie in which field medics race against the clock to save a dying soldier seriously wounded in battle. With the race director calling his name for his final round, cries of "Tape!" and "Knife! I need a knife!" filled the air as a crowd gathered in anticipation. As race director Alden Shipp shouted "Launch 'em!," Dave and his caller, Wayne Rigby, ran to the starting line still wiggling the sticks to make sure that the radio was turned on. No, Dave didn't win the race, nor did he make it to the finals, but it sure was a lot of fun to watch, and having fun was the number-- one rule of the event.