The Bear Mountain Flyers Club,did a fantastic job hosting the 1st Annual Arvin Shootout.Located just south of Bakerfield,Calif, home of the Dist 7, end of year championship.Arvin is a beautiful flying site,with a 600ft matted runway,covered pit and electric. With 21 pilot's enbarking from California, Arizona,Utah and Canada. The first Annual Arvin Pattern Shootout is in the history books.With great weather, blue skies and a light breeze, we had a blast. We were able to get in 6 plus round's of outstanding flying, 7 round's in FAI, more on that later.In Sportmans,we had only one pilot Jean Greear,took

a easy win.With four pilot's in Intermediate, Jacob " Young Gun" Boracca took all 6 round's,

but not without a fight, from locate clubmember Jim Harlander,whom put up some very good

flights,with 3rd place going to Murray ( Oh Canada) Johnson, have a safe trip home, with

James Driver placing in 4th.In the Advanced,it was the Andrew Taylor show.after having problems in rounds 1 and 2, Andrew put it all together, for the next four round's

an cleaned house, with Mike Greear and Jarvis Johnson, winning a round each,it was not

enough to hold off Mr. Taylor. Better Luck next time.With Masters,being the largest class

with 7 pilot's, Tony Frackowiak did what he does best, Win, taking 4 of the 5 rounds,with

Jerry Budd and Leon Robison, both taking a round win each,with 4th, 5th and 6th, going

to Bruce, Bill and Jim. With FAI being the top class,6 pilot's put in 7 round's. of some of

the best flying I've seen in a long time. Flying 4 round's of P-11, 2 round's of F-11 and 1 round of Unknown's, this is what Tony posted.  It was a great beginning to what we all hope will be a long tradition. We had near perfect weather and some great competition. It was a lot of work, but well worth it. Thanks to all who participated. Special thanks to Preston Knepper of the Tailwinds club who came down to input the scores. That let Mike and Jean a chance to concentrate on their flying. A big thanks to the Bear Mountain Flyers for the use of their great field.In talking with the F3A fliers, it seems the format was enjoyed quite a bit. It was really special to see those guys get to compete in the complete F3A event. We may have to do some tweaking of the format in the future to make it even better, but for a first time it went well. There was some really great flying. Watching Chip and Mark battle it out was really special. Either could have taken it that weekend. I know it pushed both of them to some really great performances. They are going to be a real threat for the USA Team. Seeing the great improvement in Matt Kimbro, Jim Kimbro and Steve as they flew the demanding F and Unknown was also very special. I hope this contest experience will help them all in the future and at the US Nats Team Trials. Just to be clear, there were four rounds of P flown and the best three P scores were used. That score was then normalized to 1000. Here are the P scores after the normalizing,

Chip Hyde - 1000
Mark Leseberg - 985.277
Steve Hannah - 929.385
Matt Kimbro - 918.512
Jim Kimbro - 895.127
Bill Sheets - 800.632

We then flew two rounds of F and the best F score was added to the P. Just for a surprise, Chip and Mark tied on the 1st round of F, giving both of them a 1000! Here are the standings after the two rounds of F,

Chip Hyde F - 1000 Total - 2000
Mark Leseberg F - 1000 Total - 1985.277
Matt Kimbro F - 930.676 Total - 1849.188
Steve Hannah F - 860.117 Total - 1789.502
Jim Kimbro F - 881.820 Total - 1776.947
Bill Sheets F - 0 Total - 800.632

We then flew one round of an Unknown I had selected. BTW, we drew for flight order before the P, before the F and before the Unknown. Only one Unknown was flown and that score was added to the previous total. Here are the final results,

Chip Hyde U - 1000 Total - 3000
Mark Leseberg U - 980.435 Total - 2965.712
Matt Kimbro U - 861.957 Total - 2711.145
Steve Hannah U - 845.652 Total - 2635.154
Jim Kimbro U - 853.261 Total - 2630.208
Bill Sheets U - 0 Total - 800.632 

 Another big thank you, to Gordon Anderson who has developed the scoring program and has been offering it to all at no charge. He put a lot of effort, a lot of it last minute, to accommodate the format.