We had a decent turnout of 19 for the Deep-South
Championships. The overall points winner didn't place
in either class, but placed high enough in both to
have the highest combined score. Congratulations to
Gene Trevino of San Antonio, Texas for his Grand
Championship performance. This is important to mention
here because he also won the Houston Hawk kit in our
raffle. Tommy Lamnek won RES flying his Houston Hawk
#5. Tim Bennett from Dallas won unlimited flying his
molded Graphite. Jerry Griffith, of the thriving
metropolis of Rendon, Texas (my old home town) was
second in RES flying an Aquila XL. Paul Perret of New
Orleans was second in unlimited flying his own design.
Ralph Brogdon of San Antonio was third in unlimited
flying a Sapphire. And, yours truly was third in RES
flying Houston Hawk #4. I think it's worth mentioning
that had we done raw scores without flight groups and
normalization, Alan Jones would have won RES with Hawk
#2. All in all, the Houston Hawk proved itself as a
competiton model.
The wind was a big factor and blew pretty badly for
all of Saturday. We endured 4 rounds of both classes.
Today's weather was mostly cloudy and windy until
about 11:00 when the wind abaded somewhat. The last 2
rounds of the 4 we flew today were more enjoyable. We
had some losses. Any loss of a model is sad,
particularly if built by the guy wiggling the sticks.
In all, we had 5 crashes, 4 of which were pretty much
total losses.
We learned a lot. Ray Brogdon scored the event in a
very selfless manner. He didn't fly. Gary Seawright
and his lovely family made lunch on the field -
another selfless sacrifice of a weekend. John Hill was
our caller, and didn't fly. We had several that came
out and timed and watched, but din't fly. Gary Smith
loaned us his winch, as did Steve Gibson. Tommy Lamnek
was our winchmaster and lent his winch as well. Roland
Beach took lots of pictures, set up camp every
morning, took people's money, and generally boosted
everyone's spirits with his Hell's Angels act... WE
were successful because of these GREAT folks.
So... The Deep-South Championships were a success. We
flew 8 rounds of 2 classes in 2 days. Some of the
things we learned... For this scenerio to work, you
really need about 30 entrants. You really need them to
preregister. You really need retrievers or a golf
cart. You reallly need the CD to be not as stressed at
work as I have been lately. I made my own check list,
and followed another as well. Between the two, I had
everything covered pretty well. There were a few barks
at the CD...but that's to be expected.
There were old friendships renewed, and new
friendships made. I wouldn't have missed it for the
world.
Jack Womack
President, Houston Hawks R/C Soaring Club
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