Short story (sort of):
Circa 1982, and I'm into SCCA Solo II (autocross) fairly heavy. At the
San Diego events, a guy befriends me out of the blue, I guess partly
because he also ran a Toyota Corolla and was interested in what I had
done to the car. This guy was Mark Navarre. I saw him on and off for a
couple years whenever I was in/around SD.
Fast forward about 10 years to ~1992. Gave up cars in the mid-80s in
favor of real estate and got into competitive handgun shooting. Ended
up forming a club and running monthly matches which drew attendance from
afar. One day this guy shows up to shoot and he looks familiar, but I
can't quite place him. He recognizes me instantly - it was Mark.
Again, I saw him on and off at the occasional event but our club closed
up by the mid-1990s as interest tapered off.
Fast forward again, to early 2000. I had been messing with a Zagi for a
few months and then read about this "IHLGF" thing in S&E Modeler. It
looked like fun, so I build a composite HLG, not really having the
slightest idea of how to fly it. It flew fairly straight, but wasn't
properly trimmed...a friend and I were flying by the seat of our pants,
and poorly. So, looking for help I pulled a HLG-related name off the
TPG web site and e-mailed him, not really connecting the dots. It was
Mark and, again, he recognizes my name and asks "were you the guy with
the yellow Corolla about 20 years ago?". Small world.
I went to the TPG field shortly thereafter and he showed me how to trim
the plane and gave some much-needed flying pointers. Best of all, three
months later he timed for me for on the first couple rounds of my first
IHLGF, which lessened the tension of participating in such a large event
and being just a rookie.
In the following years I didn't see him much as he gravitated towards
full-scale. Very sad to hear of his loss. He was one of the good guys.
Tom
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