Back on November 22 – 23, the VMPRA held its final event for the 2025 Championship season at Barry Murphy’s Field in Munro. We raced four classes: F3D, F3T, Q500, and the relatively new E2K class.
This was likely the best-attended race of the entire season. On Friday, 18 attendees turned up for practice. Saturday brought fantastic weather, allowing us to fly four rounds of each class. The day began with two rounds of E2K and finished with another two, flying the E2K aircraft on the short course for the first time to see how it better suited the planes and battery setups.
It was great to see some familiar faces from the past, along with new participants racing with us for only the second time. Keith and Kieran Harvey, along with David and Toni Axon, were in attendance, and Ian Haig joined us to race Q500 for the first time in nine years. We also welcomed new competitor Jack, flying Q500 with Damo calling for him – a great sign for the future of pylon racing.
After a fantastic day of racing on Saturday, we held the AGM once flying had finished, followed by a delicious roast meal and dessert – including a birthday cake to celebrate Wendy’s 40th.
Unfortunately, Sunday turned out to be very wet, and racing was eventually called off, with everyone heading home early.
A big thank you to Barry Murphy for hosting us – it’s such a fantastic field to fly at, and we’re already looking forward to returning there for our first event next year in February.
For the Quickie and E2K flyers, we still have one more event for the year at Western Port on Sunday, December 7.
I hope everyone has a great Christmas break, and I look forward to catching up in the New Year for plenty more pylon racing.
Results
These are the placings for this race weekend, plus the fastest times. For all the results, see the “Result” button below.
Class – FA1
Places:
1st Beau Murphy
2nd Rick Townsend
3rd Tom Wetherill
Fastest Time (Red Box): 57.10 Beau Murphy
No. of competitors: 7
Class – F3T
Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Brian Steele
3rd Glenn Matthews
Fastest Time (Red Box): 63.19 Andrew Davies.
No. of competitors: 9
Class – Q500
Places:
1st John Schmidli
2nd Eddie Rich
3rd Alan Whitbourn
Fastest Time (Red Box): 100.44 John Schmidli
No. of competitors: 9
Class – E2K
Places:
1st James Hurley
2nd Glenn Matthews
3rd John Schmidli
Fastest Time (Red Box): 78.24 James Hurley (Short Course).
No. of competitors: 5
Season Championship
That’s a wrap for F3D and F3T for this season, and the results are…
FA1
1st – Anthony Thurgood
2nd – Brian Steele
3rd – Andrew Davies
F3T
No change at the top two positions, but Andrew Davies has popped up into third place, displacing Jim Orenshaw back down to fourth.
1st – Brian Steele
2nd – Anthony Thurgood
3rd – Andrew Davies
Q500
With one event to go at Western Port, Jim Orenshaw has wrapped up this season’s championship for Q500.
1st – Jim Orenshaw
2nd – Eddie Rich
3rd – John Schmidli
Next Race Events:
– Westernport December 09, 2025.
The next full three-class pylon race will be the first event for 2026 and held at Munro on February 21-22.
Please check out the updated calendar as most of next year’s events are now listed.
Report – John Schmidli.
Photos – John Schmidli
Please note: We are looking for someone to write event reports regularly. Also, it would be wonderful to have someone photograph these events. This site has a vast readership and is important and valuable to pylon racing in Victoria, Australia and Worldwide.
The written content in this post is accurate to the best of my/our knowledge at the time of publishing. It is written from my/our perspective and reflects how I/we have experienced this event. Photos published as feature images are selected purely for their quality, general interest or topicality. When time permits, they are chosen from a pool of photos taken by myself and others. If a perspective is not being represented, I am more than happy to publish any written content or photos supplied to me, provided it is fair and reasonable.
Quick Reference