Gear Warning

I had gotten an almost brand new (12 hrs) Genesis 2.
My experience with retractable landing gear was somewhat
limited. At the end of my sixth flight I crossed the
field to check on traffic and turned into the pattern.
I announced my downwind and started my landing checklist.
Just as was about to drop my gear an ultralight pulled
into the middle of the hard surfaced runway and stopped
and just sat there. As I was contemplating what to
do (I land on the hard surface because of gopher holes
on the narrow grass strip and rough ground) a power
plane announced that it had entered it's downwind for
the same runway. I was now 2/3 thru my downwind. Just
as I was turning to base, our Grob two place motor
glider's pilot called that he was coming in for an
emergency landing. He had smoke in the cockpit. So
now I was looking for him also. It turned out that
he was behind me as I turned to final and I decided
to land long on our 3500 ft runway.

On final the runway looked clear, the ultralight had
taken off in front of me and I started to relax. As
I came in over the end of the runway at about 100 ft
I saw everyone waving at me and thought of how nice
it was of them to do that. I was getting lower and
started to flare and it hit me. S***, my gear! I slammed
the spoilers shut and in one quick motion shifted my
left hand to the stick and my right hand rammed the
gear down. Fortunately, I was able to get it locked.
I hit the ground a split second later. My friends that
were watching said that I was 4-6 ft off of the ground
when the gear came down.

After this adventure, I spoke with 2 of our instructors
seeking advice on what I could do to prevent this from
happening again. One of them suggested something that
he said military pilots sometimes use.

When I announce my downwind, at the end of the announcement
while still on the radio I also say 'Gear is down and
locked'. I have not had another incident since, but
I still intend to install a gear warning system. Not
only would it have gone off when I first checked my
spoilers upon entering downwind but again on final.
GORDY