CL Team Race FAI Team Finals
Bill Lee
AUGUST 2ND AND 3RD were the dates, the place was Lake Charles, La. The event was the selection of the team which will represent the United States at the World Championships next year in FAI Team Race.
The story of this team selection started out to be one of the infamous Louisiana rain storms which were so obvious (at least in some magazines if not in fact) from last year's Nats. But this Nats turned out to be one of acceptable, if not just plain nice, weather and some great competition. And the competition was indeed great. Two facets of the qualifying stand out. One was the good speed and one-stop races of the Jolly/Kusik team, the other was the machine-like consistency of the Plaunt/Plaunt team.
Friday, August 1 was supposed to be practice and processing day. As it turned out, there was little worthwhile practice due to the local monsoon which was triggered by a "low pressure disturbance" that popped up in the Gulf the preceding week. (Yes, Alice, there are hurricanes in August in Louisiana.) I arrived in Lake Charles at about one p.m. Friday and within an hour the rains and lightning and thunder and heaven only knows what else was centered on the runways of Chennault. Needless to say, there was no more flying that day.
However, processing came off with no major problems with Jim Dunkin and Bill Wright doing the weighing and measuring and Doc Jackson manning the fuel tank capacity gauge. Still, you really should have seen Albritton/Joy with the farmer fliers squeezing their tank back down to 7 ccs. I think third time's a charm.
Saturday, August 2nd, dawned damp and dreary with a continuation of the preceding day's rains, lightning, thunder, and heaven only knows what else. The scheduled ten a.m. starting time passed and everyone was wondering when and where this team really would be selected. Much conversation and pacing about were seen, obviously the worried and nervous contestants working off excess energy. Wrong. It was the officials trying to decide if an indoor team selection was possible in one of the Chennault hangars. Now that is not indoor free flight, that is indoor FAI Team Race! Just imagine! Selecting a world champs team in a control-line event indoors! It even looked possible until the tape measure ruled out the hangars as too small. But just think ... I can see the headlines now! "Two Teams Eliminated From Team Selection, Planes Raftered and Destroyed." But fate was on our side for once and, as the morning wore on, the rains stopped and the skies cleared and the races were back on at one p.m. with three rounds being flown off that afternoon.
Sunday, August 3rd, was a different story all together with bright sun and pleasant conditions with only a sea gull occasionally in the circle to cause any concern. (This was the same sea gull that was hit later in the week by a Rat Racer, wrecking the Rat and seriously disabling the gull.) Three more rounds were flown and the team selection was through.
The time used for team selection was calculated by discarding a team's two worst and one best time and averaging the remaining three times. The United States team for FAI Team Race in 1976 will be Jolly/Kusik, Plaunt/Plaunt, and Dunkin/Wright. Albritton/Joy will be first alternate team.
Some observations are in order:
- While the times recorded in these rounds are not as fast as what we hear coming out of some of the meets in Europe during the last year (i.e., low 4's and high 3-minute times), they are quite competitive with the British team selection times as recorded in the July 1975 issue of Aero Modeller. Team Race may not be the most popular racing event in the States, but we've got nothing to be ashamed of.
- I am not currently active in FAI Team Race but I'm in the process of building a ship and intend to compete in the years to come. I am active in Rat Race, both Fast and Slow, and in Scale Race.
For those racing fliers out there who have never seen Team Race flown, you're in for a shock! The precision and professionalism shown by the average Team Race team makes even the best Rat or Goodyear competitor look crude by comparison. The flying is cleaner, the pit stops are superior, the planes are, well, precise. I would like to challenge some of our Goodyear and Rat fliers to try FAI Team Race. I feel that, with the number of people who compete in this country and with the manufacturing capability we possess, the United States should dominate this event and any other event we care to get involved in. Let's give it a try!!
(My address is: 3522 Tamarisk, Missouri City, Tex. 77459.)
The chart of the round times by team:
Albritton/Joy — DNF, 4:49.3, 4:41.4, 5:09.9, 4:37.0, 4:53.0 — Avg: 4:47.9
Kloth/Connelly — DNF, 5:37.0, 5:36.8, DNF, 7:09.6, 6:03.1 — Avg: 6:16.6
Plaunt/Plaunt — 4:34.0, 4:35.8, 4:41.8, 4:38.9, 4:39.0, 4:38.9 — Avg: 4:37.7
McMullin/McMullin — 5:59.9, 7:25.5, 6:22.0, 5:59.7, 6:31.9, 6:50.7 — Avg: 6:17.9
Chinen/Wittkamp — DNF, DNF, DNF
Holiday/Hill — DNF, DNF, 5:02.5, 6:45.8
Jolly/Kusik — 4:33.6, 4:33.3, 4:20.0, 4:32.8, 4:56.2, 4:31.0 — Avg: 4:32.4
Nelson/Ballard — DNF, 4:44.7, 5:46.1, 5:17.8, 4:34.2, 4:29.2 — Avg: 4:52.2
Mogi/Dotched — 6:05.9, DNF, 6:25.2, 5:24.9, 5:37.3, 5:55.8 — Avg: 5:53.2
Wallace/Johnson — DNF, DNF, DNF, 4:38.4, 4:54.5, 4:43.0 — Avg: 4:43.0
Vansant/Vansant — DNF, DNF, 6:12.8, 5:57.6, 6:07.8
Dunkin/Wright — 4:42.3, 4:33.2, 4:25.7, DNF, 4:54.5, 5:12.3 — Avg: 4:43.3
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
