>Jim Schuett and I were standing in the midst of the French
>team supporters (near the French pit-man). Absolutely
>fantastic race!
Hey! Rick Campbell(pony-tailed ice cream man) and myselft were standing right there as well!
>I wish we would have seen the F2D finals! Anybody have a
>report from personal observation. I know the Russians went
>1,2,3 with the junior in 2nd.
I saw the final 2 flights with Eugene Yakovlev(he came in 18th in F2B). Eugene trained the Junior and was rooting for him to win. He also offered some insights into the flight tactics.
Fight for 3rd and 4th place was exciting only in the beginning. The Russian pilot managed to get a cut on the Latvian plane which followed by a midair a few moments later in which the russian plane went down across the field from the launch area. One of the pit guys was having problems detaching the string so the other fella ran all the way around the circle with the running motor. Great teamwork!
After the russian team launched the second plane, the rest of the flight was trying to get away from the hard pressing Latvian pilot. The tactic employed by the russian pilot was to make the Latvian guy move around a lot. You see, the Latvian guy looks like he weighs 350 punds and pretty soon was huffing and puffing trying to keep up. Towards the end of the fight, he was so winded he could barely fly level, let alone fight. Very unusual tactic employed by Boris Faisov allowed him to finish 3rd, leaving Peteris Brokans of Latvia finish 4th.
The final flight was between the Russian junior Alexander Shalayev and current top Russian pilot Igor Trifonov. From the get go, the two pilots where on top of each other with aggresiveness unseen before. They did not let up for 2 minutes until the entire streamer of the Junior's plane was cut, followed shortly by a midair in which kid's plane survived but developed a hole in the covering. After Igor's plane re-launched, the kid attacked him with amaizing ferocity! Unfortunately, the plane didn't turn as well with the hole in the wing getting bigger and bigger. So the kid in a BRILLIANT move stuffed the plane 2 feet from his pitman holding the other plane! 10 seconds later the plane was in the air attacking the other plane with renewed vigor! As much as the kid was persistent, Igor was brilliant in avoiding him. A number of times kid's wing hit the streamer but there was no cut. 10 second before the end of the match horn rang, something happened to the kid's plane and it went straight into the ground giving the victory to Igor Trifonov of Russia. Alexander Shalayev had to contend with the title of Junior World Champion and second place amongst adults.
Following the flight, Alexander's trainer Eugene Yakovlelv said: "It is good that he didn't win this time. He needs a goal to keep him interested and keep progressing." I guess there is a bright side to every situation.
