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2005 WIPRO SEASON ENDS WITH PLENTY OF DRAMATICS! The Wisconsin/Illinois Pylon Racing Organization held its 7th and final contest of the 2005 season on September 10, and it played out to be a dandy! Up for grabs was 5th year honors of obtaining the coveted “Lead Goose” traveling trophy and since no one had ever won it twice, the race was on to be the first repeat winner….or be a first time winner. Quick history on the Lead Goose trophy….it was built by Mark Warning in 2001 as a traveling trophy to be presented to the person that “most consistently leads the flock around the pylons”, i.e.: our season champion. We figure that out by simply keeping track of how many contestants you placed ahead of at the end of each contest. In a contest with 11 people, finishing first nets you 11 points, second is 10, on down to last place which even awards you 1 valuable Lead Goose point. We take your best 6 race finishes to figure out your points, allowing everyone to miss an event or pick your best 6 out of 7. Thanks to Ernie and Jim Nikodem for letting us steal this system from out on the East coast; works well for us. The year started out tight with all the former winners at the top of the standings, including previous Lead Gooser’s Darwin Larson, Jim Nikodem, Mark Warning, and Bernie Vanderleest. Also in the fray early were Mick Warning, Orv Steinmetz, and the combat duo of Mike and Rick Bohlmann. Going into the 7th race hosted by the Calumet Flyers, it was down to basically 2 pilots: Bernie and Mick. They were tied with 50 points at the top of standings with a five point cushion over the tie between Jim and Mark. Saturday turned out to be a terrific day with a slight cross-course breeze and a bit on the hot & humid side. We had 12 pilots together for what we knew was going to be a competitive day of sparring. The theme of the day was set early when an ultra-fast Carl Dvorak took his quickie into the dirt on lap 2 of the first heat with an apparent radio problem. Things weren’t much better in Heat 2 when Jim grabbed the tall grass on launch and snubbed the engine. Bernie got to win an easy race, but then knocks the engine off his #1 plane on landing! To finish Round 1, Darwin does a midair slap with up-and-comer Doug Dowling coming out of turn 3. At pylon 1, Doug makes the turn but Darwin’s v-tail goes flat and he augers a new furrow in the hay field. OK, got that round behind us….3 flights and a quarter of the starting airplanes are in the trash barrel. Take a deep breath; let’s continue racing. Heat 4 starts with Jim sticking his plane in the tall weeds again (rotten cross wind!) and veteran George Reynolds stuffing his racer in the dirt after performing a gorgeous low altitude wing over on the take off roll. On lap 8 Orv’s firewall comes loose and he is forced to land giving Rick an easy win. Halfway through Heat 5, Mike blows one in going around 3 for no apparent reason. What is going on here?! Finally in Heat 6, all 4 planes make it to the finish line and Mick is sitting on a fast time of 1:36.5 which he hopes will hold out for the day. By the way, 1 of those valuable Lead Goose points is awarded to the fast time holder of the day, so that point could be huge! Heat 7 marks the start of Round 3, and Bernie finds himself only grabbing 2 points as both Mark and Darwin beat him to the finish line in an ultra-close heat. That’s why we classify them as backup planes; they’re just not as quick as the #1. Sometime during Heat 8 Rick has a carb loosen up in flight which forces him to land. Heat 9 has Jim losing a muffler and limping around to finish 2nd to a very consistent Doug. Finally, time to break for lunch! Lunch in year’s past has been a chili war between Mick’s Chicken Inferno Chili and George’s TexMexMix from the Fires of Hell. It was tamed a bit this year with a fantastic shredded beef sandwich from the kitchen of Mark. Of course he encouraged the use of a layer of Woeber’s horseradish sandwich spread which added the fire a few were looking for. Eat a couple of them babies for lunch and then try standing out there and concentrate on nothing but racing….tough to do! So at halftime, Mark and Mick are tied with perfect scores of 12 points apiece, and Bernie and Doug are each 3 points behind. Bernie has pretty much conceded the Lead Goose trophy to Mick at this point, but the second half of the contest was yet to happen. The start of Round 4 has Mick daydreaming at the start of the heat, and his plane goes dead left after the launch. After losing it and saving it 4 times, he drills it in the dirt to score a big 0! New comer 14-year-old Malcolm Reynolds makes the others pay by taking the heat win. Heat 11 provides Bernie with the winning 4 points he needs, and now Mick is the one on the outside. Mick will probably have to bank on the 1 point he will receive for fast time to win the trophy; nice thought until Darwin pushes Mark to a smoking fast 1:34.2 in Heat 12. Round 5 starts with Mark adding another bullet to his score with a heat victory. Next heat has Bernie edging out Jim for the victory by .2 seconds. The final heat in Round 5 has Mick fighting a nasty pitch problem with his backup plane and finishing second to Doug. The year will come down to the last heat of the day, with Bernie leading Mick by 2 points. Heat 16 starts the final round with Jim hitting his normal rhythm and posting a close 1 second victory over Darwin. Mark completes Heat 17 with another close victory over Mike and Malcolm and finishes up with a perfect day point total of 24 plus fast time! Heat 18 features the head-to-head battle for the Lead Goose trophy between Mick and Bernie, along with crowd-favorite Doug in there as the spoiler. After master-flagman Chuck Sauder drops the flag, the race is on to pylon 1. Bernie keeps his plane as low and straight as possible, but actually dips down low enough to just catch the grasses of the Calumet field, which snubs his engine and sends him silently gliding toward 1! All Mick has to do now is hold off that pesky Doug, and the race is his. Apparently that was enough dramatics for one day, as Mick held on for the victory. So the final contest of the WIPRO season ended up like this:
…and the Lead Goose trophy moved on to another first-time winner, Mick Warning, with a scant 2 point advantage over Bernie Vanderleest. That’s 5 different winners in 5 years! If you’ve stuck out this story this long, you’ve got to see the related pictures and history on our website, www.q500424.com Click on the “Pictures” Link to check out our entire 2005 season.
from the Calumet Flyer’s scribe, 09/11/05
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