Nats CL: Racing
Bill Lee
THE BIG STORY in the Racing events this year was the low level of entrants but very high level of performance. It was a lot of fun to come to California for a Nats, but it is a long way out here from the East. I suppose the miles are longer from East to West than from West to East. Well, I guess the Nats will be back East somewhere the next time so the contestant level should be high again. But I doubt the level of performance will be much better than it was here in Riverside this year.
Team Race:
The FAI Team Race event was held this year in conjunction with the World Champs team selection for 1978. The final two rounds for the team selections were used as the preliminary rounds for the Nats TR event. Then those entrants who had just entered the Nats events were flown for their two preliminary heats. The best nine times from this were taken to the 100-lap semi-final races, and the three best times from the semis into the finals. When all was said and done, the first three places in the Nats event were taken by the three teams who will represent the U.S. at the World Champs next year: Nelson/Dodge, Albritton/Joy, and Jolly/Kusik.
Goodyear:
Goodyear was notable for two really significant facts. There were 28 pre-entries with only 21 processing for the event, and only 19 flew. The other thing that marked Goodyear was the exceptionally high level of performances.
There were some departures from the "book" in the way things were run. No semifinals were run and 12 were taken to the finals. This year, the cutoff time to qualify for the top 12 was a 3:13, which was about 5 seconds quicker than what it took to qualify for the nine semi-final spots at last year's Nats at Dayton. The low qualifying time this year was 2:53, again about seven seconds better than last year's best. The winning time this year of 6:18.7 was turned in by Les Pardue, piloted by Phil Shew out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Second place at 6:18.8 went to Dick Lambert, of Daytona Beach, Florida. These two times represent about a 13-second improvement over last year, and about 10 seconds better than has ever won the Open Goodyear in any previous year. It is interesting to note that the fifth place time at Riverside of 6:28.5 would have won any previous Open Goodyear event at the Nats. Perhaps that best illustrates how good the competition was this year.
Rat Race:
As good as the performance was in Goodyear, it apparently did not rub off in Rat Race. In this event, too, entry level was down with about 24 entries. Here, too, 12 were taken to the finals with a low qualifying time of about 4:50, and a cutoff time in the 5:30's to make the finals. These are not good times at all.
As it turned out, Tim Gillott was the only person who really put it together in the finals, turning a 4:38 to take first. Rat times seem to have stabilized to the extent that real good runners are turning times in the 4:40s consistently, with the occasional 4:30s. Tim's winning time this year was about the same place/engine/setup that took second at the Lake Charles Nats two years ago.
First in 1/2A Mouse Racing went to Russ Sandusky flying a Sandusky-Kasmer designed Mighty Mouse Too with TD power and a Kelly fiberglass 5/4 prop. Russ is a prime mover behind the CL Racing Pilots Association. I refer you to the Racing report in Model Aviation for the '75 Nats for a detailed description of that plane.
Slow Rat: There's only one way to spell Slow Rat this year! It's "Nashville" as in Nashville Rats! The boys from Grand Ol' Opryland really put a number on the troops this year, taking first, second, and third. Paul Tune and Marshall Busby form the nucleus for this bunch of Rat fliers who have really set the standard for the rest of us also-rans to shoot at. They did it by starting with a very good 40 Schnuerle O.S. Max and setting it up as a 35 by making small-bore pistons and liners to go in the case. Then they found a way to make the darn thing run on suction, no mean trick in itself. Last year, they were using tanks behind the engines with all sorts of trick stuff, such as multiple-compartment fuel tanks and two needle valves on the venturi. This year, they have switched to a large, very slick tank mounted on the inboard side of the nose with a so-called "chicken hopper" tank on the outboard side that the engine draws from. After they solved that problem, they had a lot of hard work to make it work right and consistently. It paid off at Riverside, to the tune of under 6:00 minutes for first, down to 6:12 for third. The Nashville Rats are to be congratulated for a job well done.
Overall: Vic Garner and Ed Jacobs did a very good job of officiating at this year's Nats. All the racing events were fairly and consistently run with no serious problems arising. A word of thanks should go to Vic and Ed for all the time spent and the work done. Good job!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
