Eliminator Race | 2023 In-N-Out Cookout Recap

The Eliminator Race of October 15th, 2023 has the highest number of entries to date at 49. RWYB had 15, Silver 20 and Gold 16. Each class had a qualifying class of 12; with the top 4 pilots receiving a 1st round bye. The weather was warm with next to no wind all day. The sky was clear, and we took some of the best photos ever. The photos are posted on the warbirdracing.org website.

Run What You Brought: The top qualifier was Andy McBride with a 2:30.06 while Tony Frackowiak held the bump spot at 2:31.34. That’s a qualifying window of only 1.34 seconds. No doubt that the lap beeps are playing a roll in the qualifying. Later in the day the best time posted in Eliminations was 2:30.30 held by Gerald Meux in the Semi Finals where Billy Malo was able to advance to the finals with the slowest time of 2:40.12. All 4 finalists (Gerald Meux, Tony Frackowiak, Chris Malo and Billy Malo) received a new FSM P-51 from FMS Models. And Gerald Meux won the event, and a ugly green event winner hat, with 2:32.13 in the final round.

Silver: At this event the pilots voted to remove lap beeps during the qualifying. The qualifying window shows the effects. The Top qualifier was Chris Malo with 2:01.48 with the bump spot at 2:06.93 held by Chris’ father Billy Malo. This makes the largest qualifying window of the event at 6.93 seconds. Billy Malo won the event as the 12th qualifier, with the best time in eliminations, 2:00.22. It goes to show you that all you have to do is get into the show and you can take it all. Before the final race all 4 pilots decided to split the purse evenly, showing good sportsmanship.

Gold: The qualifying window for Gold was 4.04 seconds. Scott Manning held the bump spot with a 1:34.04. Gary Long, Scotty Baker and Aaron Singleton all missed the show with 1:34.22, 1:34.34 and 1:34.41 respectively. They where so close but was unable to get that last 4 tenths of a second to make it in. Our top qualifier was Dave Sullivan with 1:30.57. There is no doubt that he was dialed in. Winning the event was Dave Gardner with a 1:30.39 in the finals, which was the best time in the event.

Other notable items:

One story line is Tony Frackowiak. He managed to make it to all 3 finals placing 2nd in RWYB and Silver. He also placed 3rd in Gold. Tony was a victim of our only runway collision, damaging his Gold airplane. Gerald Meux’s Gold plane was the other party to the collision. But both pilots made it to finals softening the blow. As we all know, racing comes with it’s ups and downs.

One of the best photos ever taken, came with Dave Sullivan and David Lloyd having a mid-air collision that both airplanes survived. We attached the photo sequence of the event here: Warbird Racing.

Another notable mid-air collision was in the silver class; between the McBride brothers. Sadly, both aircraft were completely destroyed.

Marta Horvath also had ups and downs this event. In the 2nd round of qualifying, she held the top spot with a 2:30.27, her best time ever. By the end of qualifying, she held the 5th spot, but was eliminated in the 1st round.

We invited local spectators to this event and had a nice turn out. We estimate that over 60 people came out to watch the races throughout the day. The In-N-Out Truck provided close to two hundred burgers. Many of the spectators that have never flown asked about learning how to fly and how to get involved. Others that do fly expressed interest in racing in 2024. We are currently working on ways to make the event more spectator friendly.

We also wanted to note that we had some new pilots that joined us for the first time. Dave Sullivan, Jeff Robinson, Tetsuo Yamada (from Japan), Randy Dauer, Dan Duffy, Jeremy Verano and Jun Sawamura (JR Pro).

Lastly, we want to thank everyone for their support, sportsmanship and efforts to promote the eliminator races. Event after event, our product is improving. We ask that you continue to support and promote upcoming events.

Ben McBride