Victorian State Championships-2007
 

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Photos courtesy of John Hallowell

Super Sunday on the Easter weekend dawned to near perfect weather. Unfortunately for quite a few contestants it was more like U2’s ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’... The KMAC field had not been mowed so an hour was lost as teams of contestants took turns to push the mower and rake the grass.

It is not unreasonable to expect earlier preparation of the host site on the day of a State Championship with many interstate visitors. There were repercussions to this delayed start later in the day.

With the grass finally smoothed and practice flights completed, the action in VINTAGE A was fast and furious among the ten teams entered. Graeme Wilson and superflick Mark Ellins set the ball rolling with a smokin’ sub 3.20 time in the first round.

Richard Justic and Andy Kerr had done little preparation prior to this meet and were relying on their combined modelling experience which must be around 70 years...:) It worked, as they scraped into the final by less than a heartbeat... 27 /100ths of a second!

The unlucky ones that just missed out were the Cosmic Rays. Back in business in Vintage A now they at last have an R250, they were faster that ever before and posted a PB time of 3.28.90. Now that Colin and Jim have IPN, it seems the sky is the limit. Jim says changing to IPN from DII made a huge difference to his Rothwell with noticeably more speed and laps.

Nats champs Rob Fitzgerald and Paul Stein were always going to take some tossing. After a first round to sort out settings, they were really honking in round two and with greased lightning stops recorded a super slick FTD of 3.17.13.

Harry Bailey and Peter Roberts were using a CS which, although it went well, it was out of its depth against a gaggle of seven high performing R250’s. Was great to see Harry’s smiling face. He was once again among his Victorian mates. We all know he was only pretending to be a Queenslander!

Record breakers Hugh Simons and Grant Potter had a really bad day. Right from their first practice the engine was sounding off tune. It wasn’t until later that night that Grant discovered what had really happened... loose head bolts had allowed the liner to rotate! Good night nurse.

Hallowell/Baddock struggled with firstly a broken vent pipe and then to tune to the right setting. It didn’t happen with lean runs reflecting in slow times. A chance of making the top 3 was there as the Dimpled Dumpling had been timed at 19.3 /10 for 50 laps in practice the week before.

Murray Wilson and Lance Smith also had a forgettable morning after strong performances in last week’s practice. A good tune proved elusive on the day.

Was good to again see the living legends in action again. The brothers Hunting were back in the thick of things and obviously enjoying themselves. It was like turning back the clock to the seventies when John and Ken first appeared on the team race scene... Despite the fun factor, the airspeed bogeyman was ever present and they again found out that times of just under four minutes doesn’t cut the mustard anymore.

Neil ‘Ledge’ Baker and his mate Greg Pretty were flying the Ray Harvey (where was Ray?) built Olympian. It was just a lack of practice time and the usual sorting that stood in the way of these two challenging the front runners.

The final promised to be close and didn’t disappoint. It was the F/S R250 Dimpled Dumpling vs the W/E R250 Olympian vs J/K with original Ollie (Kerr modded) and Voodoo 5. All were quickly away at Contest Director Mark Poschkens signal. Three super experienced pilots ensured safe flying.

Graeme and Mark had elected to run a two stop race strategy and were comfortably getting 62-3 laps. Rob and Paul had the advantage of extra airspeed with the dark grey DD and were clearly fastest with a 50 lap range. This means they would have to do an additional pit stop. Despite the extra stop, they finished the 180 laps first by 3.47 seconds from Graeme and Mark. That’s airspeed for you!

Andy and Richard performed well to get third place but lacked the sharp edge both in the air and on the ground that’s needed to go well under seven minutes.

Next big Vintage A race should be the NSW State Champs in June. As it’s in NSW we may need 52' lines and there will be ‘B Grade’ Vintage A to encourage participation from those less experienced who are not yet ready to compete against the top teams. There will no doubt be a big entry to again showcase Vintage A, Australia’s most popular control line racing class.

CLASSIC B was supposed to run straight after Vintage A. However, some bright spark thought it would be better to start Combat instead and run Speed on the race circle. Some competitors had planned their day (and Easter family commitments) on the advertised schedule. This caused consternation in the camp and resulted in the Cosmic Rays missing one of their favourite events.

So we were down from 7 teams to 6. Neil Baker again teamed with Greg Pretty and the Grassfire/Magnum GP 25 combo. After some promising practice laps, they were let down by the re-starts in the heats. When circulating, they showed fine form with plenty of airspeed.

While all this was happening, Doncaster’s Alwyn Smith was showing anyone who was interested a newly acquired plan of an Aussie B Class racer called ‘Miss Wendy’. Wendy Campbell was enthused and said she would make sure that Greg’s next building project was definitely a ‘Miss Wendy ‘Classic B. We all think he owes it to her... :-)

Hallowell/Baddock had the Brodak on song in round one with a 3.15.84.
That time was the FTD. It was achieved with a totally stock B25R engine with exactly the same specs as everyone else. Nitro was 15% and there is no doubt a lot more speed will come with further experimenting on this engine along with fuels and props.

Lance and Murray had gone for outright speed instead of laps. Their fuel contained 20% nitro, no range ingredients and ethanol instead of methanol that was bought from Bunnings. They were using an LA25 in a borrowed Galaxie, as it was discovered too late the Brodak that threw the RAM and crashed in Sth Oz had slightly bent the shaft.

Ken Hunting had his Brodak going better than the old OS, but the new model was still carrying a gremlin or two so things didn’t go as smoothly as planned, even with Rob Fitzgerald controlling the up and down.

Harry Bailey was back in town and with his old pitman Peter Roberts resuming pitting duty, anything was possible. However, they couldn’t find the time to do the mandatory run in sequence on their new Brodak and paid the price by not posting a 70 lap time good enough for the last three.

Time for the final. Hallowell/Baddock got a quick start and were on a near perfect setting with the Brodak .25. They had reasonable speed and 50 laps plus from the lightweight Rocket. They were well ahead of Wilson/Ellins who had gone off song and slow. Graeme later found the problem to be a loose Nelson plug. Wilson/Smith had lost well over a minute at the start due to a cut finger that contributed to an accidental flood of the OS.

At 53 laps and well in front, Hallowell/Baddock came in for their first pitstop. What happened next was very disappointing and Hallowell/Baddock retired from the race. Keith said later he needs to take a break from racing. This unfortunate incident opened the door for Lance and Murray to soldier on to first place. They were a minute clear of Wilson/Ellins who finally got going on the last tank, but is was too little, too late. Lance and Murray’s win was a reward for perseverance and Lance’s many, many hours spent practicing and working on motor, fuel and prop developments.

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