After the cookout last evening Sheryl and I received an unnerving phone message. We were "invited" to meet with the ARC judges at 10:30 this morning to discuss "allegations made against us" during the race. Yikes! What could we possibly have done? We wracked our brains for hours trying to figure it out. Did we cut another plane off? Did we endanger someone? Did we grievously and unknowingly break some rule? The judge who called didn't pick up her cell phone for us to find out what the issue was and her voice mailbox was full. Needless to say we had a restless night.
As this morning progressed we found that many of the other teams were invited to discuss allegations as well, so we were somewhat relieved to find out it wasn't just us and the infractions ranged from minor to somewhat serious. As we waited outside the judge's chambers (one of the hotel rooms) we nervously talked to some of the other racers while waiting for our turn in the hot seat. When we were finally up it turns out that one of our fly bys was a bit too low. That was ALL. It turns out the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) which is the bureau that investigates airplane accidents and incidents was there measuring altitudes. Sheryl and I both felt that we did not fly the pass too low and let the judges know our side of the story. Although not final until tomorrow, they said they would most likely ding us with a two knot penalty for that leg of the race. Whew! We were so relieved. Of course we would have preferred not to have any infractions, but compared to all the adventures we had this seemed relatively minor to us. We ended up chatting and laughing with the judges and told them of the heroics of the team that extended their fly by when we were having engine issues. They thanked us for sharing the positive information. Who knows, maybe that team can get a two knot reward!
We already know that we did not finished in the top ten, but do not yet know our overall standing.
We had an opportunity to review our score sheet with the official race timer and were pleased to find that we beat our handicap on every leg - even taking into consideration the two knot penalty on one leg. We beat the handicap by anywhere from 0.8 to 19.5!
Sheryl and I are both relieved and happy that we finished the race, are safe and flew a good race. We will find out how we rank against the other teams at tomorrow night's awards banquet.
The balance of today was spent once again shipping excess weight home, fueling the plane and removing our race numbers and sponsor advertisements. We participated in the children's event where girl scouts and any other local youngsters who are interested in flying came to the airport. One of the mother/daughter ARC teams drew a large chalk outline of the airport on the tarmac and we listened and responded to one of the gals who acted as ATC as we pretended to fly in using various approaches with our little co-pilots at our sides. We walked through a pre-flight with the kids and then gave them turns sitting in 701 at the controls.
We have been having some fun driving the black and white police car around town. Folks in Atlantic, IA that we only met yesterday are recognizing us and waving greatings. I think the local police are on to something since everyone carefully obeys all the traffic laws as we go by. They are getting additional enforcement on someone else's dime. Traffic slows down and almost always wait for us to go first at stop signs. Perhaps with some modifications to the Mustang....
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