| A time for celebration |
by ASA Secretary Bob Thompson December 21, 2011
|
The 2011 ASA Christmas Season Celebration / Annual Meeting / Awards Banquet took place on Saturday evening December 17.
It was a very enjoyable social affair, with pilots renewing old friendships, discussing the season's flying,
spouses and friends enjoying an evening out, and allowing new members to meet and interact with the core membership of ASA.
Many thanks go to hosts Pam and Ted Wagner, for providing not only their gorgeous new home to host the party in,
but for also providing all the scrumptious food for the evening. Pam and Ted provided quite a feast of very tasty items,
which required much time and effort to gather and prepare. Certainly, no one went home hungry. Thanks Pam and Ted!
With the Wagner abode being on the far southwest edge of town, it was a bit of a drive for many.
But, with accurate directions and a map provided by Ted on the invitation, plus a pretty empty freeway most of the way,
it was easy for all to attend. Blake and Teresa Seese even drove all the way down from Apple Valley, UTAH for the event!
Several factors compounded and resulted in no gathering last year, so we had to make up for lost time.
Thus, this year's ASA Contest Series Awards presentations took much longer than usual. Speaking of which, thanks go out
to President Chris Aniol for his time and effort in getting all the awards created and rounding up the traveling awards
for this year's presentations.
Awards were presented by Contest Manager Ted Wagner. Placing awards were for cumulative scores of the best 9 of 14
contest days of each pilot. This kind of scoring allows for competing pilots to miss some contest days due to other
commitments and still have a chance at winning.
The 2010 awards were presented first, with the following attendees receiving nice plaques: Steve Koerner –
A Class 1st Place, Cliff Hilty - A Class 2nd Place, Andy Durbin - A Class 3rd Place, and Chris Aniol - B Class 3rd Place.
For 2011, the awards went to: Ralph Bergh and Ted Wagner – who shared flying Ralph's LS-8 for A Class 1st Place,
Steve Koerner - A Class 2nd Place, Andy Durbin - A Class 3rd Place, Blake Seese - B Class 1st Place, and
Chris Aniol - B Class 2nd Place. Several other awards were also presented to Steve Koerner - the Top Gun award for
both 2010 and 2011, which were for the single fastest speed for a contest day posted in any ASA Contest Series Race
of each season (a truly outstanding feat), and Steve also earned the dubious distinction of getting this year's Lead C award.
from the same 2011 flight that resulted in the 2011 Top Gun Award. The Lead C started originally as a way ribbing a pilot
who perpetrated the biggest OOOPS! of the season.
There were few OOOPS! during the past several years of ASA contests,
so it ended up that inadvertent minor airspace infractions were all that could be determined as worthy of the Lead C
award in the last two years. Mike Stringfellow was presented it in 2010 for having used a turnpoint data that was
slightly different (not his fault) than what was recognized by the contest scorer. Mike did some research on the award
and shared its history with everyone prior to handing over the award to 2011 winner Steve Koerner. Steve had for a
brief few seconds in a 2011 contest day flown over some Class B airspace, which was against ASA Contest Series rules,
but not FAA rules. For both pilots, it was indeed a very momentary OOOPS!, but provided an opportunity for some good natured
ribbing by fellow pilots.
A new award was initiated for 2011, for the pilot who makes the longest OLC flight for the year that originates in Arizona.
Unfortunately, winner Randy Acree wasn’t at the event to accept his award. Special thanks to Mike Stringfellow for collecting
awards won by Tucson area pilots. He will get them to the winning pilots down there in the near future.
Near the end of the evening elections were held for 3 open positions on the ASA Governing Board. Outgoing members Chris Aniol
and Bob Thompson were re-elected, and some new blood was added to the Board, with the election of Bob Kellner.
It was a grand celebration! Congratulations to all.
|
|
