Event

It’s the first time that we have raced at Swan Hill in a very long time. We were back to our pre-World Championship numbers with a large number of us camping out at the airfield. There were 7 caravans or camper trailers this time. The club members made us feel very welcome and provided us with food for breakfasts, lunches and Saturday night’s dinner.

The weather was good with the rain stopping mid Friday afternoon and the rest of the time was mostly sunny with light to moderate winds.

The racing for both days started with F400, followed by Q500 and FA1 to finish the day. Time allowed FA1 to complete 6 rounds on the Saturday so only needing 3 more rounds to be completed on Sunday. All classes completed 9 rounds over the weekend.

Thanks to the Swan Hill Club for manning the no.1 pylon timing cage, the VMPRA members who looked after the no. 2 & 3 pylons and as usual, Toni Axon for acting as starter and Nerida Matthews for the tireless job of time keeper/result recorder and keeping us moving along.

Results

FA1

Places:
1st Barry Murphy
2nd Gary Davidson
3rd Vernon Gibson

Fastest Time: 58:55 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors – 11

F400

Places:
1st Gary Davidson
2nd Jim Orenshaw
3rd Glenn Matthews

Fastest Time: 65.41 – Gary Davidson
No. of competitors – 8

During the F400 racing, there was the unfortunate demise of models belonging to Daniel Arapakis and James Hurley.

Q500

Places:
1st John Schmidli
2nd Jim Orenshaw
3rd Mike Kellet

Fastest Time: 94:15 – Daniel Arapakis
No. of competitors – 8

Check out the results in detail

Championship

With only a few events under our belts for the season, the Championship is still up for grabs.

FA1 – Barry Murphy has moved up to the top position from second place while Gary Davidson and Glenn Matthews have moved up to 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

F400 – Daniel Arapkis remained in 2nd place with Gary Davidson and Andrew Davies swapping positions with Gary now in 1st position and Andrew in 3rd.

Q500 – John Schmidli remains in 1st place, Jim Orenshaw moved up to 2nd having swapped with Daniel Arapakis, now in 3rd position.

Full Championship Results

New Calendar Entries

It’s worth having a look at the events calander again as there have been some additions.

For this year, there have been 2 non-Championship events added.

• A sports/Q500 event being put on in November by the LDMFA club. A great chance for those wanting to get into pylon racing, to give it a try.
• At the end of the year, there is the 67th MAAA Nationals being held in Albury/Wodonga. We have decided to get right behind the Nationals by participating and also encourage others from surrounding states to come along.

2014 Calender

We are starting to get events confirmed for next year, so keep checking back and add them to your diaries. Two events now listed are:

• Camperdown – the first event for the year.
• A F3D WC 2015 team select event in October being held at Cohuna.

Next Event

The next event on the Calendar is the State Championship being held at Hamilton on October 12-13. I believe there will be a number of our South Australian friends coming to this event which will be great. I look forward to seeing everybody there.

The championship table has been updated and there is also a photo gallery from this event.

John Schmidli (Report & Photos)
Additional photos thanks to Andrew Arapakis

The written content in this post is acurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of publishing. It is written from my perspective and reflects how I have experienced this event.
Photos published as feature images are selected purely for their quality, general interest or topicality. They are chosen from a pool of photos taken by myself and others when time permits.
If a perspective is not being represented, I am more than happy to publish any written content or photos that are supplied to me provided it is fair and reasonable.

Quick Reference Event Result Photo Gallery Season Championship Event Calender