IMAC WHAT IT IS TRULY ALL ABOUT

[The Dirt Doctor]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Dangerous Dan
	I first became interested in IMAC honestly because the planes were just too cool. Our club had hosted a contest for several years, and the Contest Director wasn't able to do it the following year. Not wanting the tradition to stop, I applied for my Contest Director Certification, and Santioned the next contest. I had never flown IMAC so I memorized the F&J manual, and even drove down to another contest just to see how it ran and volunteer to help so I could learn. Well the first Contest I CD'd came and went and was a success, Now I have CD'd 6 contests, 7th-10th Annual Texoma Imac Challenge, Powerflight IMAC Challenge, and 2005 SC Regional Championships. Having CD'd for severial years but not flown I was accused of having basic thumbs and an unlimited brain, Finally Last year I started competing in Basic, The bug instantly hit me, to be able to hang out and fly with all the great pilots I had met over the years while CDing contests was awsome. Well this year I moved up to Sportsman and flew my first contest as Sportsman in Little Rock Arkansas. It was this weekend that I truly learned what IMAC was all about. Having practiced some and done well last year I was verry anxious/nervous about flying sportsman. Round 1 I lost my Dalton in the sun and exited the sun over the deadline, I could not stop my knees from shaking the rest of the round, even managed to earn myself 2 zeros on high K manuevers. Round 2 3rd manuever in the first sequence My engine looses power and really sounds odd, I dead stick and earn 7 zeros on my first sequence of round 2. My Caller/Travling Partener/and fellow Sportsman flyer Scott and I noticed one of the cans were loose. We instantly grabed tools and started removing the cowell so I could tighten the header back to the motor. To much dissapointment the header was broken at the flange. Without a second Thought Scott handed me the transmitter to his new Wildhare Sukhoi and started pushing his plane to the flightline. I flew Scotts plane the rest of the day. Later that day John Red Master Craftsman, designer, welder, and Intermediate pilot, asked to see my header. Instead of hanging out and socalizing with all his friends and other pilots, he left the contest right after flying his last round, drove home and spent a .lot of tome repairing my header. The pilots meeting was not until 9:00 am on Sunday, I arrived at the field around 7:00am. At 7:20 John walkes up and hands me my header and a new gasket. The welding was perfect. Scott and I went hard to work re-asembling the plane, I was reinstalling the header and scott was cleaning out my carb due to flying in some dirty fields prior to the contest. The plane flew great after the fix and even earned me second place in the unknown round(6th in the contest). Like I said after all these years I learned what this Sport is really all about. John went a way out of his way to repair my header. Even though I was flying aganst Scott in sportsman, He let me use his plane and worked hard to help get my plane back together. Just about every pilot asked if they could help or walked over to see if there is anything they could do. So that is what its really all about, friends, having fun, helping others, the IMAC Community has always been and always will be a GREAT group of people! Here are some Pics of John Red(Master Craftsman) and Scott aka Laser200(Friend and Competator) and myself working hard on my plane.

I was really happy to see that John was competing this year. He did not compete last year at the Little Rock contest - only judged. I had watched him fly and couldn't believe that he didn't want to compete but he said he didn't want to.

He flew in intermediate this year and did very well. If you look at the scores (on another site here at FG) you will see that the competition was very fierce - only a few points separated 2nd from 5th!! It was some really great flying.

Thanks again John for helping Dangerous Dan AND for flying IMAC this year.

Bobby