Control Line: Racing
Bill Lee
LOOKING BACK at the recent Riverside Nats, I find that I'm proud to be from District 8! If you read my report on control-line racing at the Nats a couple of months ago, you have a general idea of what went on, but now I'm going to crow a bit about what the people from this area did this year.
Let's start with Goodyear. There was a very small turnout this year. Only 19 entrants made it to the qualifying circle. Of this small turnout, Vic Garner and Ed Jacobs, event directors, decided to take 12 to the finals, rather than run semi-finals and finals. (This, by the way, met with near unanimous approval by the fliers.) Out of those 12, seven were from District 8, and six of the seven were from what I call the "axis" — Oklahoma City, to Dallas/Ft. Worth, to Houston.
I know that all the real hot dogs weren't there this year, and so I really shouldn't have anything to brag about. That is, until one looks at the performance levels it took to qualify, and then what were the winning times. A full third of the times turned to make last year's semi-finals wouldn't have qualified this year!
And how about Senior Goodyear? Doug Harris, and Bud, his dad, have a strangle hold on that class. They put a number on the Open fliers this year, just like last year, with a winning time considerably better than what won Open, a 6:06 vs. 6:18. If you can be competitive in Texas, you can be competitive anywhere!
What about Rat Race? Did anybody have anything to be proud of in Rat Race? Tim Gillott did. But the District 8 Rat fliers got in their licks by qualifying four out of the 12 that Vic and Ed took to the finals (out of the 24 or so that flew). The finals in Rat were a joke. Once you get past Tim, who really had his act together and turned a good 4:38, the rest of the places were determined by who screwed up the least. I was lucky enough to have a reasonable (read that slow) flight and turned a 4:49 for second place. Dickie Ritch, also from Houston, motored in at 5:05 for third. Those just aren't good times, even for a good local contest, let alone the Nats where the times are supposed to be the best.
You wouldn't believe some of the things that happened in Rat. Ron Esman from Houston had an excellent shot in the last heat of the finals but blew a blade off a fiberglass prop, which tore up the plane badly. Pete Storrie from Denton, Texas, blew an HP in his heat. A lot of problems kept some awfully good people out of the money.
Here in Texas, we typically fly in temperatures in the 90's with humidity usually in the 50% range. Both my Rats were built at least three years ago and, until this year, I had been using the K&B 40S. With this setup, my fuel tanks (about 3 3/4 to 4 oz.) were good for about 55 laps. This year, I switched to the K&B 6.5 ABC engines which significantly increased speed, and also fuel consumption. However, the tanks were still good for about 50 laps using the 50% fuel I normally run. This is a bit marginal but had not been a serious problem. Until I got to Riverside.
The temperatures in Riverside were usually in the 95-105 range every day. Along with that, relative humidity was about 15-20%. The result was an increase in fuel consumption of about 15%. All of a sudden, my 50 laps per tank had dwindled to 42 laps. This is still O.K. for qualifying, where you only need 35 or so laps per tank but, if you should happen to make it to the finals, you need about 47 laps per tank to go the entire 140 laps, with only the two required pit stops. From practice the night before, I thought this might be a problem. I brought along some 40% just in case.
I made it to the finals, and during the break before the heats began, I wished to see what was required to get the mileage back up. It turned out that I could get about 46 laps with 42% fuel, so that's what I ran in the final. My pilot, Richard Stubblefield, and I worked it out that I would signal him at 45 laps, then he would hit the shutoff one lap later, and bring the ship to me at 47 laps. We had no margin! We got three good tanks this way and made it to 140 laps. It was close. At 138 laps, the engine began to go lean from lack of fuel and, when we brought it in at 140, the plug element was completely gone. We would never have made another lap, if we had needed it. Close.
Slow Rat was owned by the Nashville Rats, just as it was last year. They have their act together to the point of being consistently better than the rest of us. This year many more fliers were pushing them, a bunch of them from District 8. This year there were something like 35 Nats pre-entries, but only 20 or so processed and flew. With this small number, only 10 were taken to the finals, four of those being from the "Axis."
The Nashville bunch took first through third, fourth going to Harold Lambert from Florida, but fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth came from Texas.
Contest Report: This past Labor Day I participated in the annual Southwestern Control-Line Championships in Dallas, Texas. This is the top contest held every year in District 8, not only for the racing, but for the other control-line events. Judging by the results, the racing was particularly good. Goodyear was won with a good 6:09, with second at 6:12. Low qualifying was 2:59. Rat was also quite competitive. There were three teams with under 5:00 qualifying times. The event was won by Ron Esman from Houston at 4:43.
Slow Rat had the best and most even competition. There were nine entries and, since time was getting short, the event director decided to only run a single qualifying heat, and then take four to two final heats. When the dust settled, low qualifying was 3:02 and the seventh fastest time was a 3:15.9. With that many times so close together, they decided to take six to three finals. A 3:15.9 didn't qualify. When you consider that the cutoff time at the Nats for two heats was in the high six-minute area, these were very respectable times. The final saw Larry Hoffman from Corpus Christi winning with a time of 6:10.2. This is not as good as some of the times we've heard about from other areas, but it is getting very close.
W. R. Lee, 3522 Tamarisk Lane, Missouri City, TX 77459.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
