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Don Stegall for NMPRA President - Full Platform Statement
Hi Racers. I'm running for the office of President of the NMPRA. I'm about 44 years old, with a wife of 12 years, and a nearly 8 year old son. Until 2000, I had been away from modeling for quite a while. Since coming back into it, I've been educating myself on most aspects of RC and participating in the joys of everything from backyard and park flyers to AMA class racers, and from electric airboats to monster trucks. My pre-teen and teen years were filled with pylon racing exposure. My father Jim Stegall designed, built and sold the Stegall Minnow for Formula 1 racing in several versions from around 1970 to 1977. The most notable and controversial being the Stegall Super Minnow, aka the Boney Toni. I started laying up Stegall Minnows when I was about thirteen, and over the next few years I laid up many if not most of the Minnows, as well as the Telford and Violett designed BobCat that we also produced. I did a lot of building work for Minnow and BobCat customers and shaped many landing gears and tail surfaces for an extra fee. During the 70's I helped with the races at the Monroe R/C Club. My last experience working the course there was judging the #3 pylon in a crouch and hugging the pylon for the duration of the heats. Cages weren't often used back then. My primary competition modeling activity in the 70's was control line speed. After the side exhaust K&B Schnuerles came out, I had an endless supply of K&B Torpedo engines and parts. Then when the K&B rear exhaust engine came out, I had a new supply of more modern schnuerle engines and parts. I highly enjoyed making new heads and modifying ports and doing other engine destroying things, but I learned to love running engines on a test stand and getting direct feedback from my efforts. I also loved going out to the field with Dad for F1 test flights and practice. I had started playing tennis tournaments in the mid 70's as a USTA Junior, and along with college demands in '77, I dropped out of the model aviation arena for a long time. I still ran my R/C car until the early 80's, but in 1981 I discovered computers. While working at a large custom metal fabrication shop writing CNC programs, I designed and built a computer controlled pig feeder for NC State, the US FDA, and Central Soya. I returned to college in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. All of my time from 1983 on was devoted to a very large number of computer software projects and some were quite successful. In 1995 I went to work for Progressive Software where I became the Chief Architect and designed the software system that runs Jack in the Box, Starbucks Coffee, Steak and Shake, and several other large chains. In 1996 while returning home from a meal out, my young son saw a Cherokee 140 landing from just overhead. He was extremely intrigued so we went to the small airport and watched the pilot do almost an hour's worth of takeoffs and landings. I had been working 12 hour days for a long time. On a visit to Egghead Software I saw a CH Products flight yoke. I came back the next day and bought it, and Flight Unlimited 95, which was an aerobatic flight simulator. I eventually got Microsoft Flight Simulator. After flying it for a few months and having many conversations with my wife about flying real planes, I took an intro flight. Even though I knew that I probably couldn't get my medical certificate, I still took lessons. When I was ready to solo, I went for my medical, and as expected, I was turned down because of some medications I take. At that time I had less than 20 hours of logged time, but I continued on with my training just to meet the challenge and logged over 80 hours. In 1999 my wife and I started a new house, and several friends and acquaintances had been killed in crashes, so I put the full scale flying on hold. In March 2000 we moved into our new house. I discovered a month or so later that the original Monroe R/C Club site was now hosting another club. In 1999 I had purchased the RealFlight R/C Simulator for my Dad, but he wasn't real enthused about flying anything other than "the real thing", so I wound up with the simulator. After finding out the field was so close by, I started flying the simulator a lot. I soon wanted to fly the real thing again, promising myself that it would be just for fun sport flying. But of course the old racing bug still had me, I just didn't know it yet. After resuming my model aviation activities, I started reading Duane Gall's RC Pylon Racing columns in Model Aviation. I found a lot of the information in the articles interesting and it made me want to get into racing. Then an electric Speed 400 Pylon racer called the VIP Racer caught my eye in a color magazine ad. It was love at first sight. Then I got a modelSPORT Video Magazine that featured a Speed 400 pylon plane and I was hooked. I got the VIP and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I couldn't find any racing activities of any kind in my area near Charlotte, NC. So I hit the web. When I started looking for info on the web I found a lot of sites devoted to R/C Combat, R/C Pattern, etc, but not a lot about racing. Dub Jett had some great info on his site and then I found Drew Telford's web site. I eventually found more and more info, and made a lot of phone calls using the info that Duane published in Model Aviation and using info from Drew's pages. I soon had a lot of information, and it dawned on me that other beginning racers would be looking for the same info. So being a software architect and engineer, I decided to create a web site. That web site, www.PylonWorld.com, is now visited by beginners and experienced racers and has become a popular portal for pylon racers. I still work on it as often as I can, and I try to update it with new pylon racing info as soon as I receive it. I've also created web pages on it for manufacturers who don't have their own web site. In January of 2002 I formed an alliance with RCUniverse.com to host the PylonWorld forums. Both RCU and the RCU hosted PylonWorld forums have been going strong and a lot of pylon newcomers have come out of the forums. My web site and the forums were created to be an information pool where people can get info on pylon racing. Because of my purchase of some electric pylon planes, I have been reading and participating in the electric racing forums for over a year. In early 2002 I approached Darrol Cady about expanding the scope of the NMPRA to include sport, scale, and electric racing. We eventually decided that it would be best if those forms of racing stayed outside the NMPRA's scope. When this decision was made, I decided to form a new organization that is called RCPRO. It has been in membership drive mode and no serious meetings have been held. My concept for this organization is that it will be a SIG with SIGlets for specialized areas of racing, such as 25 sized AT-6 racing. When Darrol announced that he was not running for President of the NMPRA this year, I decided that I would run for the position. The driving force behind my efforts with the web site and forums over the last year has been to help pylon racing by making it more accessible. I believe that I have the leadership and marketing skills needed to help rebuild pylon racing's status and to increase the number of participants in AMA events. I have not been racing very long, in fact the 2002 NATS was my first AMA class race. For those of you who don't know, I designed and built the pylons used at the 2002 NATS. When Steve Kaluf, the AMA Competitions Director called on me to build the pylons, I dropped all of my racing preparation, and I went to Muncie several days early in order to get the pylons ready. Thanks to the AMA staff for supporting my pylon building effort and especially to Chris who did a great job of learning how to build them, and got #2 and #3 up on Saturday morning. I've been flying pylon and pylon style planes a lot over the past year, and I've been learning a lot about pylon racing with the help of a past Formula 1 NATS and NMPRA champion. In order to continue developing PylonWorld.com and the PylonWorld forums, I've had to learn a lot about all disciplines of pylon racing, including scale and electric racing. One thing I have learned is that the NMPRA is made up of an extremely diverse group of people with extremely diverse opinions and goals. The role of President of this organization often does not make a person especially popular from what I have seen and been told. It is difficult to please most people, most of the time, if any of the time. So why would I want the position? Because I believe I can bring a new style of leadership to the organization. The by-laws allow for the president to make executive decisions, but they also allow the President to delegate authority to other officers. If I'm elected, the significant decisions will be made by votes of the District Vice Presidents, not by myself. One thing I have heard from many people is that they want a say in the organization. Complete membership votes will be conducted, so that an accurate representation of the membership's wishes can be obtained. One thing that must be remembered is that the AMA Pylon Racing Contest Board ultimately makes the decisions for all AMA rulebook events. An accurate showing of the membership's wishes goes much further than some phone calls and emails. The District VP's will be heard and they will play a very active and major role in the direction of the organization. Even though I am a relative newcomer to modern racing, I have some opinions on things that need to be done and things that need to remain as they are. These are my opinions, or opinions formed by talking to people about what they want for pylon racing. I believe that 428 should be left as it is. Things seem to be working very well for this event. The maximum number of participants allowed at the NATS was 80, and 80 people signed up. Some people believe that it is too fast. I think it is a good event as it is. A few people told me at the 2002 NATS and afterwards that I need to conquer 428 before I move up to 422. If this is true, then 428 is far enough below 422 in speed and pilot demand, and should remain as it is. I believe that 422 needs to have a cheaper prop solution. $20-35 for a prop when the best pilots come in skidding on the muffler is horrendous. Because of some conversations I've had with AMA officials, I am almost certain the AMA will not have any problem with composite carbon fiber props being allowed for 422, especially since they have permitted them every time a waiver has been applied for. If the current CF prop proposal does not pass the Contest Board, the NMPRA Board needs to come up with a proposal that will be acceptable. More and more groups are running 424 events that conform to the rulebook and even though some are applying extra restrictions like disallowing composite wings and tails, most have settled on engine lists and claiming rules to create parity. The NMPRA Board needs to come up with a unifying recommendation, so that 424 can be run more uniformly. Some VP's have raised the issue of the need for a class between 424 and 428. There are numerous groups running events that fall between the 120+/- mph 424 planes and the 160+ mph 428 planes. Some are using 46's, some are using Rossi's or MVVS's, and some are using Webra-Q's or Sport JETT's. One possibility is simply using third party empty can mufflers on 428 engines. This would create a class where there are no engine lists or other variables that have caused some turmoil in the 424 class. I am submitting a rules proposal for the 2005-2007 cycle so that this option remains a possibility. Another issue that the VP's and the membership need to decide on is how to accommodate racers who don't want to race in the current AMA rulebook events, but still want to race. These sport, scale and electric racers need an organization that they can receive representation in and to help them organize their events and efforts. Is the NMPRA going to be that organization? I personally believe that if they are not going to be represented in the NMPRA, then Article 2 of the NMPRA by-laws needs to be reworded. I believe the NMPRA needs to add a mechanism to allow for affiliate groups such as APRA, NEPRO, and SEMPRA. A coordinator for these groups could facilitate their cooperation with the NMPRA, and all would benefit. I've been working on developing concepts for a 424 based series, for which I believe major sponsors can be obtained. If elected, I will do everything I can to make this series a reality, assuming that the VP's and members approve the concept. I have a lot of experience leading large diverse groups of people. I believe that I can help pylon in many ways by being the President of the NMPRA. I have already been working very hard for pylon racing and I have the energy and the will to continue working as hard as I can for pylon racing. I will not be at every race. But I will keep my finger on the pulse of all aspects of pylon racing. When executive decisions are needed, I will make them with the best knowledge I have been able to obtain from the VP's and the membership. The NMPRA will be your organization, and I will serve for you tirelessly.
Thank you for your vote,
Last Updated: 8/01/2002 00:40 |
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Send mail to DonStegall@carolina.rr.com with questions or comments about this web site.
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