Tag Archives: Munro

Munro Nov, 2013 – Event Report

Posted on by

Beau Murphy on home turf

The last VMPRA event for this calendar year was held at Munro (near Bairnsdale) at Barry Murphy’s superb, purpose built, pylon racing field. We usually get a good turn-out for events at this venue but as usual only the weather can put a dampener on it. Well, this was literally the problem. Showers on Saturday & Sunday stopping racing briefly until rain settled in on the Sunday afternoon bring the event to another early ending. It has been a bit of an ongoing theme this year.

Despite this there was some good racing to be had. Saturday morning was started with 4 rounds of F400 followed by 4 rounds of Q500 and then 4 rounds of FA1. Sunday started with 3 more rounds of FA1 and then we only managed 1 round of Q500 before the rain settled in.

It was great to see James York from South Australia and Ranjit Phelan from NSW at Munro. Although Ranjit does this fairly regularly, it’s great that these guys travelled such long distances to go pylon racing. Such is the passion we have for this facet of the hobby.

Results

F400

With little over a second between Andrew Davies & Tom Wetherill, it was a close result from 1st to 2nd places.

Places:
1st Andrew Davies
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd Glenn Matthews

Fastest Time: 66.91 – Tom Wetherill
No. of competitors – 8
Course – 10.5 Lap

Q500

Daniel was back in fine form with a convincing win in Q500. It was unfortunate that Matt Young broke his plane on the 1st race of the week end and spent the good part of the Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning rebuilding his plane only to have the rounds cut short by the weather so he didn’t fly again for the event. It was good to see Matt back racing and now he’s got a license and a car, we hope to see him more often. James York, also had a plane wrecked in the 1st round but luckily flew his backup plane for the rest of the week end.

Places:
1st Daniel Arapakis
2nd Mike Kellet
3rd Tom Wetherill

Fastest Time: 92.67 – Daniel Arapakis
No. of competitors – 10
Course – 10.5 Lap

FA1

Daniel Arapakis and his very proud father, Andrew

It was good to see Ranjit back down in VIC and he was in fine form taking first place. The story of the week end for our premier class was Daniel Arapakis’s first ever race in FA1. He didn’t just get up there and fly around way off the course. He was attaching right from the start, not only giving Gary Davidson and Jim Orenshaw a good run for their money but beat them with a time of 67.47. Unfortunately this enthusiastic approach to his racing saw a mid-air between him and Gary later in the event. There was also a mid-air between Vern Gibson and Tom Wetherill.

Places:
1st Ranjit Phelan
2nd Barry Murphy
3rd Andrew Davies

Fastest Time: 58.93 – Ranjit Phelan
No. of competitors – 11
Course – 10.5 Lap

Check out the results in detail

2013-2014 Season Championship

FA1

Barry Murphy increased his lead from 9 to 13 points with Brian Steele and Glenn Matthews remaining in 2nd & 3rd place respectively.

F400

Gary Davidson remained in 3rd place while Andrew Davies moved ahead of Glenn Matthews into 1st position.

Q500

There was no change in positions with myself (John Schmidli) in 1st, Daniel Arapakis in 2nd and Jim Orenshaw in 3rd place, but Daniel has eaten substantially into my lead.

Full Championship Results

Next Event

There is no other VMPRA events for the rest of the year with the first one being at Camperdown on 1st and 2nd of February (2014).

In the meantime, there is the MAAA Nationals on at Albury/ Wodonga on December 28-30, 2013. Don’t forget to fill in an entry form if you going to fly at the Nats.

Check out the Event Calender for these events and all the new event entries for next year. Make sure you put them in your diary so you don’t miss any of the action.

I won’t be at the Nats so if anybody would like to do a report and/or photos for the Nationals, I’ll put then on this site. So wishing you all a great Christmas and here’s to some more fun racing next year.

John Schmidli (Report & Photos)

The written content in this post is accurate 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

AMPRA, Munro June 8-10, 2013 – Event Report

Posted on by

What a weekend this was! I would have to say, “too much pylon racing is barely enough” but it came pretty close.

Vern's rather cold F400 model (Vern's iPhone photo)

It’s seldom we get to go pylon racing for 3 days in a row, but even more rare that we would have good weather to do this. This weekend, we encountered absolutely spectacular weather for all 3 days. Icy mornings to start with, clear blue skies and extremely still conditions prevailed.

Strictly speaking this isn’t a VMPRA event. It’s the annual AMPRA (Australian Miniature Pylon Racing Association) Championship and this was hosted by Barry Murphy at his spectacular, purpose-built pylon racing field, affectionately known as Bazza’s Paddock.

We had a good turnout of Victorian competitors and 1 interstater (Ranjit Phelan) with a large contingency camping out at the field which is becoming a popular thing to do at a lot of the country locations. It was a shame that not more interstate competitors could make it to the event.

The catering at this event was fantastic with a huge variety of food throughout the day including a pre test flight breakfast.

FA1 (AUST F3D), F400 & Q500 classes raced this weekend.

Saturday we raced 4 rounds of F400, 4 Rounds of Q500 and 2 rounds of FA1.
Sunday, 3 rounds of Q500 and the remaining 7 rounds of FA1.
Monday, 2 rounds of Q500 and the remaining 5 rounds of F400.

FA1

Places:
1st Beau Murphy
2nd Gary Davidson
3rd Vern Gibson

(R to L) - Vern Gibson, Marcus Guss, Barry Murphy, Beau Murphy, Glenn Matthews & Gary Davidson,

The fastest time was Ranjit Phelan with 56.51s. Terry O’Connor’s plane went in, going around pylon 3 and Beau Murphy hit a pylon.

F400

Places:
1st Glenn Matthews
2nd Tom Wetherill
3rd Andrew Davies

(L to R) - Brian Steele, Andrew Davies, Jim Orenshaw, Tom Wetherill, Glenn Matthews & Garry Davidson

James Hurley raced his new KD Racer and Daniel Arapakis flew F400 for the first time with his Terry O’Connor built aircraft. His best time and 2nd race ever in this class was 72.36s.
Fastest time was flown by Andrew Davies with 68.74s.

Q500

Places:
1st Daniel Arapakis
2nd Ian Haigh
3rd John Schmidli

(L to R) - Jim Orenshaw, John Schmidli, Daniel Arapakis, Beau Murphy, Ian Haigh & Kim O'Conor

There were 10 entries – the largest number I’ve seen at a 3-class event in the last 4 years. Really great to see more interest in this class and this has really raised the game with closer levels of competition.
The fastest time was Ian Haigh with  95.19s. This was achieved with his spare aircraft after the mysterious mid-air disintegration of his Viper.

 

 

More Information also see:

Race Results & Times
Photo Gallery

World Championships

By the time our next event comes around, competitors will be there or on their way to the F3D World Championships in the Netherlands. We’d like to wish the Australian and New Zealand teams all the best. Those representing Australia are:

Beau and Barry Murphy
Ranjit Phelan and Rick Townsand
Tyler and Warren Mees
and our junior, Matt Young and caller Bruce DeChastel

Also other VMPRA members:

Tom Wetherill and Jim Orenshaw who are representing New Zealand.

Next Event

The next event is at Bendigo on July 13-14 and we are racing the FA1, F400 and Q500.

We are currently trying to confirm whether camping is allowed at the field, but there is a caravan park 5 minutes away in Marong where we usually have the AGM. We are also expecting to run the VMPRA AGM and general meeting (venue and time TBC).

New Event – Swan Hill

We have an event coming up on September 14-15 in Swan Hill. VMPRA haven’t been to Swan Hill in a long time and it’s always great to get a new location to go racing, so put this one in your diaries and let’s support this one.

In the last couple of years the Swan Hill club has experienced a real resurgence and they are very keen to have us. There is a group of Swan Hill members that will probably camp at the site and they can also provide up to 8 helpers. They have free on-site camping, a hot shower and toilets and there is likely to be big brekky and lunch at very reasonable prices.

The strip is 50 metres from the pits and the runway is gypsum (no dust) and the club can mow a take-off square and roll it if necessary.

So let’s try and make this a successful weekend. It would be great to see the guys from SA and the other Eastern states there.

John Schmidli – (report and some photos)
Additional photos provided by Lydia Arapakis (thanks).

Event Report – Munro, March 2013

Posted on by

Back on the weekend of March 23-24, the VMPRA held an event down at Bazza’s Paddock. For those who are unfamiliar with this venue, the field is near Munro between Bairnesdale and Stratford in Gippsland (Victoria, Australia). This field is a private, purpose-built pylon racing course developed by Barry Murphy. It is always a brilliant place to hold an event.

After the recent hot weather, it was nice to have milder conditions. Each day started off still, but the wind picked up during the mornings. Unfortunately on the Sunday, it was decided that FA1 wouldn’t fly as the wind had become too strong to continue racing. As a result, only 5 rounds of FA1 were flown for the weekend.

There was a lot more carnage than at recent events, with planes lost by Rick Townsend, Andrew Davies, Matt Young and James Hurley. James and Matt found themselves out of planes by lunch time on Saturday. Bad luck for both of them but especially for Matt, who had traveled down by train from Bendigo with his planes, gear and camping equipment which was a really big effort! It was also good to have him flying Q500 as well as FA1.

Beau & Barry Murphy with their "Hall of Fame" awards

During our lunch break on the Saturday, we had a visit from some VMAA & MAAA committee members. They presented the VMAA ‘Hall of Fame’ to Beau and Barry Murphy for their 2nd place at the F3D world championships back in 2011. It was great that the presentation could be made during this event and congratulations to Beau and Barry. Well done and we’ll be looking forward to hearing how you go at the world champs in Holland later this year.

FA1

1st Place Barry Murphy
2nd Place Tom Wetherill
3rd Place Glenn Matthews

F400

1st Place Tom Wetherill
2nd Place Gary Davidson
3rd Place Glenn Matthews

Q500

1st Place John Schmidli
2nd Place Daniel Arapakis
3rd Place Ian Rickard

Championship

The championship is now getting close to the end with only 2 FA1,  F400 and 3 Q500 events left for this season.

For FA1 there was no change with the top 3 still being Tom Wetherill, Beau Murphy & Glenn Matthews respectively. Tom has increase his lead considerably as Beau had an uncharacteristically bad run on Saturday.

F400 saw a swapping of positions between flying partners Tom Wetherill and Jim Orenshaw. Tom has leaped to the top and Jim has moved down to 2nd place. Andrew Davies has now moved up to 3rd place.

There is a tight battle at the top with myself (John Schmidli) moving back to 1st place with James Hurley in 2nd Place although both on equal points. Positions have been decided based on total times. Daniel Arapakis maintains his 3rd position.

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

Next Event

Our next event is at Warrnambool on April 13-14
All 3 classes (FA1, F400 & Q500)

John Schmidli