2006 JR Challenge. Russo Style!

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2006 JR Challenge. Russo Style!
By: "WoodIsGood" Tony Russo
on: Thursday, March 16, 2006

Legendary builder and FlyingGiants Staff member Tony Russo is fresh off a week of flying at this year's JR Challenge. He brought back a ton of pics, and a story to tell...

On March 9th thru the 12th, IMAC pilots from as far as Canada and Jamaica invaded Punta Gorda, Florida for the JR Challenge (JRC). This is the 5th year that the contest has been held in Punta Gorda, and almost 2 years after hurricane Charlie you can still see some of the effects of the storm.

A total of 54 pilots registered to compete in the four classes: Sportsman thru Unlimited. The weather forecast called for lots of sun with highs in the mid 80s and winds of 15 mph all week. I arrived on Wednesday to see many pilots already there getting some last minute practice in. The field is set up with 2 runways running north and south facing opposite directions, with Sportsman and Intermediate on one side and Advanced and Unlimited on the other. There is no contestant judging at this event, so a big thank you goes out to all the judges that volunteered their time to come out and stare into the sun for 4 days. After the flying on Saturday, Peter Goldsmith held a little flying clinic for all the pilots that wanted to attend and flew some of the maneuvers that pilots were having problems with, such as what a true 45 degree line looks like and how important it is to enter and exit maneuvers wings level.

The format for this year was to fly 2 rounds of known and an unknown each day, giving you a total of 15 sequences. You drop your 2 lowest known scores and 1 unknown score to determine the winner. The unknown on Friday was a little different. Andy Kane posted 10 maneuvers prior to the contest that you could practice. When it was your turn to fly you were handed a sequence and had one minute to look it over. Each pilot flew the same maneuvers but did not know the sequence until just before having to fly them.

The top 5 finishers in each class moved on to fly on Sunday in a sudden death fly off. This was a separate contest and consisted of 1 known sequence worth 50%, 1 killer unknown worth 40%, and a 4 minute freestyle worth 10%. To define “killer unknown”, the Unlimited class was a 6 figure 500 plus k sequence! David Moser was the only Unlimited pilot to get through the sequence with no zeros! Most of the 20 finalists – including myself - had never flown 4-minute freestyles. All pilots did well and there were no mishaps. I had a lot of fun doing it as did everyone else.

When all the flying was complete David Moser came out on top winning the top spot in Unlimited as well as the sudden death round. Also Mark West and Leighton Henry from Jamaica took 2nd and 3rd in Sporstman, flying in their first IMAC competition.

Final Results

Sporstman
Mike Elder 40% Aerotech Yak
Mark West 40% Comp Arf Extra
Leighton Henry 40% Comp Arf Extra

Sudden Death Winner
Mike Elder

Intermediate
Alan Cook 40% 3W Extra
Tony Russo 35% Dalton Extra 260
Pedro Jordan 40% 3W Votec

Sudden Death Winner
Alan Cook

Advanced
Pete Castine
Tony Kreg TBM Extra 260
Joe Ryan

Sudden Death Winner
Larry Arseneau

Unlimited
David Moser 40% 3w Votec
Ivan Kristensen 40% Carden Extra 260
Paul Sandys 40% Godfrey Extra 300

Sudden Death Winner
David Moser

Congratulations to all the winners and to everyone who participated in this event!

Check out my pics in the Big Events Gallery!