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SPA West Open Regional
Championship The first Senior Pattern Association (SPA) West Championship meet was greeted with cool temperatures, cloudy skies, light winds and excellent flying. A record 23 pilots showed their skills. Flyers from Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas participated. There were three first time SPA pilots and one, Sam Corlett won first place in Sportsman. Friday practice was greeted with off and on rain and quelled most practice sessions, though a few brave souls got in a flight or two. Saturday saw a dry runway with light winds from the north. Pilots got four rounds in on Saturday with Jerry Black and Jeff Owens teaching the locals a real lesson on pattern flying. Sunday saw rain as we arrived at the field. Everyone must have know the rain would subside as they got their planes out put them together. Sure enough, the rain stopped almost on queue and flying started at 9:20, only 20 minutes later than scheduled. With Sunday's two rounds, flyers got in six flights and dropped the two lowest scores. When the scores were tallied, Jonathan Efinger won Novice, Easton Carson was a repeat winner in Novice- B, Sam Corlett won Sportsman though each of the three pilots won two rounds, Jerry Black won all six rounds to go wire to wire in Expert and Jeff Owens walked away with all six rounds to soundly win Sr. Expert. Thunderbird members provided excellent judges both days and relieved pilots the task of judging. Members also helped keep both flight moving and planes in the air. Lunch was provided both days and over 25 pilots. Then friends and family met for dinner at a popular Tex-Mex restaurant for some excellent food and drink. Lindy Quinton handed out the first West SPA points championship trophies. Mark Ehlers won in Novice, Gary Alphin won Sportsman and Dave Dingman won the Expert points award. Congratulations guys for attending events and scoring high to accumulate the points. We must have timed it very good as light rain started falling as we were wrapping up the awards ceremony.
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Senior Pattern Association |
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