Day 2 Report Welcome To Camp Tyler

Welcome to Camp Tyler AKA the Palmetto Nationals AKA the Perry Circus. Anticipating warm weather and Southern Hospitality, pilots arrive from Belgium, Canada, California, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida …you get the picture. It’s very cool watch 60 plus rigs pull in one by one. Tomorrow, April 23rd is the 19th anniversary of R5N, Perry
Rhonda, Allison, and Wesley are so generous to allow us to spend 10 days playing in their side yard (literally). You would think 65 contestants competing out of a single grass field would be a constant furball – but not so; smooth as silk.
After last year’s wind-out, R5N was due better weather and so far two contest days are in the bag.  Hopefully Wednesday too, but it’s not looking so good after.
Contest Day one started in a good bubble then died half way down the first leg and the rest was very “sporty”. Contest Day two … just the opposite; sniffers could not stick and launch was delayed. 30 minutes later it popped and game on. All classes flew a 2-hour MAT with TP’s 1 & 2 mandatory then up to 5 more turnpoints could be claimed. Perry has “bucket” of TPs close together and some TPs actually overlap using a 1-mile radius. This proved to “bite” some competitors as they claimed distances in overlapping turnpoints. Grumble, grumble.
Congratulations to Contest Day 2 winners. Sports – 92 Kevin Anderson @ 49.50 mph, FAI - C2 Chris Ruff @ 53.42 mph (that’s 3 days in a row), 18 Meter - 5E Eric Nelson @ 63.56 mph, and Open – AD Jerzy Szemplinski @ 64.15 mph.
Stay tuned …to infinity and beyond!