Region 10N Contest, Arkansas - May 24-29, 2010

The Memphis Soaring Society is hosting the Region 10 North Soaring
Contest in 2010. Practice dates are May 22 & 23, with a 6 day contest
to follow May 24-29.

So far we have 4 confirmed towplanes line up. 2 club owned pawnees,
Sarah Kelly in her CalAir, and a nearby privately owned towplane.
With a few more towplanes to help out from nearby clubs in our
region. Our club has an enormous site. It's over 100 acres with a
3,600 foot strip that is 300 feet wide. Alongside that is room for
each contestant to park their RV, trailer and tie down their ship each
night. Our clubhouse has a his/her shower & bathroom. The clubhouse
has wireless internet, heat & a/c, tv, kitchen, etc. We also have a
projector that can be used for briefing items such as pulling up
blipmaps for example. Our main briefing room is plenty large for a
contest. Check memphis-soaring.org for more pictures

May is our BEST time of the year for soaring. You may have heard that
eastern arkansas has lots of water based agriculture (called
aquaculture). Arkansas starts to flood the fields in June. So, what
makes May the best time of year is the endless table-top flat plowed
fields that are DRY. Most of our soaring is up and down a small 100
ft tall ridge that is 150K long by 10-20k wide called "crowleys
ridge." This isn't ridge running, just a "drier" area of land that
kicks off thermals. West of this ridge is rice fields, again bare,
dry, empty in May. East of this ridge is cotton fields. They stay
fairly hot too.

One of our members, Steve Vihlen "SV" who flies an ASG-29 recently
updated all of our turnpoints and control points to crop duster strips
and municipal airports. Throughout the general area of the
turnpoint's, if your above 2,000 you should have no problem making it
to an airport or agstrip. If you get below that, well....you've got
endless farmland that is plowed and flat as glass. All in all, this
should be the SAFEST regional contest you can imagine. If your a
beginner, then this may be the race for you. If your a veteran racer,
then you may just get excited knowing that you can push it to the
limit and not be concerned about flying over unlandable terrain.

Another huge thing to consider is what there is to do during "no
contest days." Memphis is famous for 3 main things. Elvis, Barbeque
and Rock-n-Roll. If you want to see Graceland....it's an hour from
the gliderclub. If you want Barbeque....we'll be catering it for
dinner, and you can go to world famous bbq restaurants in downtown
Memphis. And for Rock-N-Roll....we've got museums for the kids, Sun
Studios (birthspot of rock n roll), gibson guitar factory, live music
on beale street, etc.

As of Oct 1st we have 4 club members who have confirmed they well be
in attendance, 1 from out of state totalling 5 which is the minimum to
compete. We have a penny pincher backup plan that will work with only
5 people for a sports class contest. There is no chance of us
cancelling this contest. But, it's very early and there's room for
many many more. As of today, we still have the most signed up out of
all contests. Our classes are going to be sports, standard, 15M and
18M. Go to http://ssa.org/sport/CalendarByEvent2.asp?chkContests=1 to
signup

Where to stay? Google search Wynne, AR. Our club is just 10 minutes
north of there in Cherry Valley, AR. Wynne has all the required
things to make your stay comfy. Walmart, all the generic restaurants,
many unique restaurants are all there. Wynne is a good place to stay
if you do not have an RV.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions you can email me at
liv2soar(at)yahoo.com or Steve Vihlen at scvihlen1(at)aol.com or Reb
Byrne at rebbyrne(at)hotmail.com. The 3 of us are airline pilots by
night and glider pilots by day. Reb is a sports class national
champion by the way. The three of us were selected by the Memphis
Soaring Society Board of Directors to help setup this contest.

Hope to see you there!