Dakota Thunder IMAC 2011

After last year’s successful IMAC event, the Propbusters hosted the 2011 version on Saturday, July 17th. The forecast was for hot and windy, but fortunately all we had was the heat -- 100 degree heat. Despite the un- South-Dakota-like ‘hot and sticky’ conditions, we soldiered through 3 full IMAC rounds with 10 registered pilots.

The fliers who took part in this year’s Basic category competition were: Doc McGuigan, Bob Olson, Mike Rossman, Chad Olson, Jim Tiller, Clint Outka and Wade Outka. Moving up to Sportsman this year were: Gene Jobjen, Clancy Kingsbury and Zac Roller.

We, once again did pilot judging. This year the sportsman pilots judged the basic competitors and the basic competitors judged the sportsman.

The first round of competition started around 8:30 AM, with each pilot flying two sequences per flight. All went smoothly with the exception of a take-off crash sidelining Jim Flora before he had a chance to score any maneuvers. After the first round, Zac Roller led the Sportsman and Wade Outka led the basic.

The second round began just after 11 AM. This round went a little faster with the increased familiarity in scoring and logistics. Another casualty occurred in this round when Mike Rossman lost rudder control on his CAP and did some serious damage on a hard landing. After the second round the leaders were unchanged. But some significant shuffling occurred in the near-top spots.

About 2 PM, with everyone hot and tired, we decided, that, after a short break, we would do round three. We shuffled the flying order once again and the final round went smoothly. The scores really tightened up, stimulated by some really good flying after all the practice in the first two rounds.

When the smoke cleared and with a short delay getting all the scores into the computer, the event CD Jim Tiller presented the trophies. Zac Roller took the top spot in Sportsman, and Chad Olson edged out Wade Outka for the Basic trophy. You can find a detailed list of the scores on page 3 of this publication. The scores are also on the IMAC website.

This event went very well. We received nothing but good feedback from those involved and from spectators. Having last year’s event under our belt definitely made this one easier. We did a better job of scoring, logistics and flying. The score entry into the computer was done in large part by Jim Kammert’s son, Alan. A big thank you to him for several hot hours of data entry.

The food was provided by the Central High School Baseball team. They took in some good money from the hungry fliers. The ‘sloppy dogs’ were a favorite
again this year.

The consensus is that we will do it all again next year. After all, we now have some flyers listed on the NW IMAC site scoreboard.

Many thanks to all those who attended, flew and in any way made our second annual event a success.