The 2012 soaring season has officially kicked off for a number of GTA Racing Association enthusiasts. On March 24^th and 25^th GTA racers braved a frustrating weather forecast and breezy winds to place the first two race days of 2012 in the record books.

Friday morning dawned gray, wet and worrisome for contest director Lane Bush. In fact, many of the host club members suggested calling off the event due to weather conditions. Lane reported that the decision was made for him once Tim McGowan called from LaGrange saying he and his son Jack were preflighting their tow plane and departing for Quitman. With nothing but an optimistic attitude twelve competitors clocked out of work on Friday and headed for Quitman, GA.

On Friday night the competitors were rewarded with a wonderful seafood buffet and a round table discussion on race strategies. The strategy session had been planned due to the fact that seven competitors had never raced before.

Saturday’s weather was as forecast with rain until 12:00 noon. Rose City Soaring provided a lunch of smoked pork in the hangar. By the end of lunch the front had moved through and the sun was busy drying up the ground water. Hugh Gardner in OJ launched at 1:00 as the first sniffer. Quickly shot down, Hugh launched again to no avail. Around 2:15 Lane Bush in XF and Greg Shugg in 1^ST finally were able to stick and the tow planes began launching the fleet.

The start gate did not open until 4:15 and 4:25 for the “A” task and “B” task, respectively. Luckily the task was a minimum of 35 miles and four “A” class competitors made it around. The “B” class mostly stayed in the start cylinder, although Kyle Pack in JR did manage to fly just under seventeen miles before landing out in Thomasville. Lane Bush won the “A” class in XF.

On Sunday, the weather was much better although winds were around thirteen knots out of the West. “B” class launched first and four of the competitors had valid starts. Three of the four landed out and David Krautter in RC made it all the way around to win the day! The “A” class competitors all had valid starts with two landouts and four making it around. Robin Clark in RF posted a nice blue day speed to win the day.

The racing was very challenging due to the conditions. However, the story here is that five competitors were very young and inexperienced. The veterans freely shared tips and strategies with these young men. We also trained a new scorer/weatherman in Bill Lardin and a new retrieve desk operator in the young Brittney Eastman.

We also had the pleasure of having WALB New broadcast our race on the nightly news. The segment can be seen at http://www.walb.com/story/17250515/glider-pilots-compete-in-race .

If you are new to competitive racing I encourage you to join the GTA group. For information on the web go to http://www.gliderpilot.org/GTA . You can also find the schedule on the SSA web under Racing >; Calendar >; Fun Meets.

GTA Race grid

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GTA Pilots at First 2012 Race

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