Radio Control: Pylon Racing
Bill Hager
Report by Dennis O'Brien
While most of us are putting logs on the fire trying to keep warm, or shoveling snow, there are still some people racing. Every year, over the Christmas and New Year holidays, the people in Orlando, FL put together a sort of winter Nats. Included, of course, is Pylon Racing. This offers some of us a mid-winter break.
Racing at this year's Tangerine Races found the weather cold and windy, but the racing hot and furious, as both Quarter Midget and Formula I times attest.
Wednesday night, racing registration began the three-day extravaganza, with safety checks for both events and static judging for Formula I. In all, 23 Formula I and 21 Quarter Midget entrants registered to do battle, many coming from northern states and provinces to the "warmth" of Florida.
By the evening's end, Bob Brogdon's immaculate Polecat emerged as the top static aircraft, barely edging out Jim Bartels' beautiful Toni.
Thursday, the first day of racing, brought wind and rain, which eventually canceled racing for that day and forced us to complete 10 rounds of competition (five rounds for each event) in the remaining 1 1/2 days.
Friday morning dawned very cold and windy with temperatures in the low forties for the QM fliers. Several top competitors had many problems with the cold weather, suffering no-starts and dead flight-pack batteries due to the extreme cold. This was clearly evidenced by the many goose eggs posted on the results board. But those hardy souls who did manage to pull it all together under adverse conditions experienced the reward of several good races.
This year, we allowed straight .240-in. venturis and pressure. Coupled with race-horse starts (which evened up the handicap problem of taking off last), many planes raced head-to-head for 10 laps.
Dallas, TX's Bruce Richmond returned to his home turf to win first place with his Nelson-powered Rivets. Following close on his heels was Dave Latsha (Lemoyne, PA) with a Ron Young Cox–powered Rivets. All the way from Michigan, Dave Keats pulled out a third-place finish with a Ron Young Cox–powered Pole Kitty. Florida's Bill Williamson pulled out all the stops in his third round and ripped off a 1:19.3 to cop fast-time honors with a Ron Young Cox–powered Root Air Cobra.
Others who didn't fare so well read like a who's who of the fickle finger of fate. Michigan's Wayne Yeager and wife Karen wiped out his Shark in heat No. 3 while rounding pylons two and three. Jake Jacobson (from Georgia) experienced constant fuel problems, which accounted for several no-starts. When he was running, his aircraft was very fast and smooth-handling.
A real hard-luck story befell Tennessee's Greg Doe and daughter/caller Katie. Greg showed up with two of his own-design P-39 Air Cobras, which were beautifully finished and had speed to match their looks. Unfortunately, both were no longer with us by day's end—one falling prey to a shorted battery pack and the other from radio gremlins. As would be discovered later, his bad luck did not end in Quarter Midget.
The Old Man of Racing, Stu Richmond, managed a fourth-place finish racing against some of the best, showing consistency to be a very important factor in racing, as many faster competitors finished well below Stu.
Summing up, Quarter Midget was simply the survival of the fittest, showing that those who are prepared and consistent win races. Formula I began immediately after the completion of Quarter Midget at approximately 2 p.m. This is a tribute to the contest workers, to get five full rounds of Quarter Midget completed in five hours!
In one of the first heats, Bob Brogdon (Powder Springs, GA) flew his static-winning, K&B-powered Polecat to a 1:13.0 to capture fast-time honors, and to give other competitors something to shoot for. To say Bob had the fastest aircraft there would be an understatement. A better word would be "awesome!" And all this was done under some extremely rough flying conditions. He backed it up with a 1:13.9 to show his was no fluke—and with an "old" K&B engine, not one of the new California specials! Bob continued his winning ways to nail down first place honors in addition to fast time and best static model. Congrats to Bob on his "Grand Slam" season opener. I believe the closest competitor to him was Bill Williamson with a 1:14.9. Bob also entertained the crowd with a very tight race with Brian Richmond, when Bob's horsepower forced Brian into a cut.
Looking over the results board again showed a multitude of zeros attributed to the cold weather. Normally strong starters and batteries found turning over cold, balky racing engines with high-nitro loads more of a chore than they could handle. Others made the racer-to-spectator transition: Wayne Yeager, who crashed two aircraft with radio problems (in addition to a Quarter Midget); Jeff Kerlo, who got bit by the "around-2-3 touch-and-stuff" method; Jim Young, who ended up flying the wrong aircraft while his sat on the ground eating itself up with a shaft run; and the most spectacular of all when Greg T-boned Dave Keats in a shattering mid-air. Greg was flying a brand-new Polecat, and as usual had done a beautiful job of finishing the model. The third round, he and Dave Keats met by accident, and both splattered parts over the entire area from pylon one almost all the way to pylon two. As previously mentioned, Greg had already crashed two Quarter Midgets, and this mid-air didn't help much toward his new-season points standing.
On another note, Greg's daughter Katie is his caller and seems to be doing an excellent job. Now if we can just get Greg to get his stuff together! (Just kidding, Greg, just kidding.)
Dave Latsha was only semi-climactic to the aforementioned, as he folded a wing rounding No. 1 pylon and spiraled into terra firma beyond the pits. The attrition rate, as can be seen, was high, and all are not included here. But racing was excellent, with many four-plane heats and most pilots turning times in the high teens and low twenties. Not bad, considering the weather.
As mentioned, Bob Brogdon sewed up first place honors while Bruce Richmond nailed down second place. Third place honors fell to Brian ("Wonder Thumbs") Richmond, who decided at the last minute to make the trek from St. Louis to compete. It was good to see one-time Florida resident Frank Anderson make the trip all the way from Canada to race down in the "warm country."
Racing was completed on Saturday at midday, again only through the efforts of some excellent help from the workers. Thanks again to one and all from myself and the competitors!
I hope those who did well, and those who maybe didn't do so well, had a good time, considering the weather, and will return next year for another Tangerine Race.
1983–84 Tangerine Race Results
Formula I:
- First: Bob Brogdon — 1:13.0
- Second: Bruce Richmond — 1:16.8
- Third: Brian Richmond — 1:21.4
- Fourth: Rex Knepper — 1:25.4
- Fifth: Bill Williamson — 1:14.9
- Sixth: Tom Kwiatkowski — 1:37.5
- Seventh: Jimmy Bartels — 1:18.3
- Eighth: Gail Jacobson — 1:18.7
- Ninth: Dave Latsha — 1:31.0
- Tenth: Jim Young — 1:33.0
Quarter Midget:
- First: Bruce Richmond — 1:22.6
- Second: Dave Latsha — 1:22.5
- Third: David Keats — 1:30.4
- Fourth: Ron Richmond — 1:33.4
- Fifth: Bill Williamson — 1:19.3
- Sixth: Jim Young — 1:20.6
- Seventh: Charles Burnette — N/T
- Eighth: Jimmy Bartels — N/T
- Ninth: Rick Cranmer — N/T
- Tenth: Tom Kwiatkowski — N/T
Well, it looks like the cold weather tried to go south. But, from the weather reports I heard up north and some of the weather we had in Texas, I can't really feel sorry for the guys having to brave 40° temperatures in the morning.
In racing, we have a limited number of planes and engines to choose from. When something new comes out, it usually gets a lot of attention. Pictured in this month's column is a plane called the Wild Turkey. It will be interesting to see what this plane does in the '84 racing season.
Anyone else with anything new, send me something on it, so we can pass it along to the readers. If you have pictures, send them along also—5 x 7 black & white are perfect, but 3 x 5s or even color shots can be used.
Most of the letters I have received to date are in support of standardizing the Q500 rules. Let's hear from you. What do you think?
See you next month.
Bill Hager 706 Glen Haven Dr. Conroe, TX 77302
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
