The Poway version of the USA National WAG 2009 Selection Contest was held on Friday afternoon, June 6th at the Torrey Pines Gulls Poway Flight Center. Here is the official report on the event.
First, I want to thank Mike Seid, Parviz Kamib and Brad Willoughby for being there to assist me in getting through the contest. I also want to thank the Joys (George and Jo), John Bruner and John Hammond for their help. Keith Finkenbiner was the Official Observer as required by FAI for this event (F6D) and he did a very "official" job. There were other club members who came out to help as is always required and very much appreciated. For those of you who have not already checked out the format of F6D, which is the required contest format for being considered for an invitation to the World Air Games 2009 in Turin, Italy next June, I invite you to go to our web site (http://www.torreypinesgulls.org) and click on the USA National World Air Games 2009 Selection Contest banner. That will take you to our website for this event. We chose to have only one Qualifying round since our event. We had 40 pilots compete in the event, of which 10 were international pilots (5 from Brazil; 4 from New Zealand and one from Canada). From the Qualifying Round, the top 24 pilots were selected. They were divided into two flight groups of 12 and we began the Semi-final round. Each group flew the "All-up" task. At the conclusion of the Semi-final round, the top 8 US pilots and the top two International pilots moved on to the Fly-offs. The Fly-offs consisted of one throw of "All-up" with the first pilot down (or otherwise scoring a zero) out of the contest. All remaining pilots are brought down for a repeat performance until there is only one pilot remaining. Due to the number of pilots, we flew 4 flight groups in the Qualifying rounds. The top 24 pilots that made it to the Semi-finals were: Oleg Golovidov; Mike Smith; Jun Catacutan; Phil Barnes; Larry Jolly; Gordy Stahl; Kevin Botherway (NZ); Paul Anderson; Arend Borst (Canada); Mario Sergio De Lucca (Brazil); Aradhana Singh Khalsa; Darwin Barrie; John Erickson; Bruce Davidson; Brad Willoughby; Bill Chase; Richard Pinho (Brazil); Mike Seid; Chris Adams; Jonathan Bryan; Lex Mierop; Adam Weston; Terry Kopland; and Mike Leggett. The top ten pilots (eight US and two International) that made the cut and were in the Fly-offs were in order of finish: 1. Oleg Golovidov 2. Paul Anderson 3. Phil Barnes 4. Adam (Red) Weston 5. Kevin Botherway (NZ) Winner of the "International Class" Championship 6. Bruce Davidson 7. Larry Jolly 8. Arend Borst (Canada) 9. Mike Smith 10. Jun Catacutan Congratulations to the top ten pilots and thanks to all the rest who participated. I also want to recognize and issue a very special thanks to our Host Sponsors JR DSM Radios, Spektrum Radios and Horizon Hobby. Without the pilots and the sponsors, there would not have been this venture into the world of F6D. From the after contest discussions, it appears that there may be more of these contests held in the US and in Brazil. Ron Ron Scharck, CD USA World Air Games 2009 Selection Contest
