SEN 3334
- San Valeers Contest Report
San Valeers Annual
The SanValeers Annual was very well attended event and the report was sent on to us.
Contest report for the San Valeers 76th spring Annual & 42st 7th rounder held April 24-27, 2025
Similar to last year our contest started on a Thursday and ended on a Sunday but we also had some F1E flyers that flew from the Hill on the Monday and Tuesday after our contest had ended and their F1E events were C’d by Mike McKeever and Mike Richardson.
At our Spring Annual we got to fly all 4 days under various weather conditions. but we got to fly every day so the flyers had enough time to finish multiple events as desired. We even had rain or misting on a couple of the days but the flyers got right back into as soon as the rain letup and were making their maxes in the nice thick air that was left behind. Like last year we set up our events so you could fly any day on the Nostalgia and AMA events and you didn’t have to finish up on the same day you started the event. This helped the flyers get all their events in no matter what the weather was doing. We elected to fly Cat 3 instead of Cat 2 since it started out a little breezy and we had some good competition in many of the events.
On the AMA & nostalgia events our most popular event was A Nostalgia with 7 entries. 4 of our flyers Randy Secor, Walt Ghio, Mike Thompson and Bruce Hannah were clean through 5 rounds but it ended up with Randy Secor scoring the win with 10 maxes flying a Cresendo followed by Walt Ghio at 7 +maxes and Mike Thompson and Bruce Hannah both dropping their 6th max.
Our second most popular AMA/Nostalgia event was C/D gas and C nostalgia gas with 6 entries. In C/D gas Randy Secor won the event with 7 maxes flying a Gysob. Guy Mennano and Justin Martin were close behind dropping their 6th flight. In C nostalgia Justin Martin won it with 8 maxes and Guy Menanno was close behind again dropping his 8th max.
Rocco Ferrarioo had a very productive weekend winning Vintage FAI, Catapult Glider, 1/2A gas, and both the Bob Hunter and Bud Romak Dawn patrol gas events. He was a busy guy for sure.
Robert Donnely from Arizona won both A and B gas. I used to fly with at various contest competing against his father when I lived in Phoenix a long time ago.
I think one of the fastest models on the field was flown by Don Deloach flying a Cyclon .049 in a Super Pearl. That engine just shierked and the model went like blazes as a result Unfortunately he had an overrun on his 3rd flight and didn’t get it back till later.
We had some very dedicated rubber flyers like Bill Swift and Glenn Grell from Oregon that flew a lot of our rubber events and did well.
We had a special event honoring Jim Hurst that had passed away recently. He like to fly Ramrods so we used the top times from each of the Ramrod models that flew in the various event and the one with the highest time won both $200 and an engine and Walt Ghio was lucky enough to win that.
Like most contests we had some very good flyers that flew a lot of events and it showed in all the events they flew.
The FAI events had a good turnout also with 7 entries in F1A that Ken Bauer won it with 1245 seconds. F1B had 12 contestants and Blake Jensen won that event with1306 secs.
I want to thank Mike McKeever who ran the FAI events.
I also want to thank Guy Mennano and Terry Kerger that helped at the CD table along with Mike Thompson that has run the Bob Hunter memorial for a number of years.
Thanks also go to Todd Reynolds who brought all the San Valeer T shirts and donated the large TV for the raffle.
We gave away some great prizes with Engines, balsa wood . fuel and kits and hobby related stuff so no one went home empty handed.
We had a variety of weather over the 4 days and I want to thank everyone that showed up to support the event. We had an excellent turnout with 47 contestants that registered at our event.
I hope that everyone returns next year for a fun contest that will be in it’s 77th year for the San Valeers.
Terry Thorkildsen
2025 San Valeer’s 76th Annual & 42th Annual 7 rounder
Cat 3
1/2A Golden Age Vintage FAI
1 Bruce Hannah Classic TD.049 600 1 Rocco FerrariTop BanannaOS Max I.15 1303
2 Mike Thompson Satellite 3TD.049 577 2 Al Menanno Swift Miss GH Torp .15 960
3 Rocco FerrarioSpace Rod TD.049 334 3 Randy Secor Cresendo OS .15 360
1/2A Gas Vintage Wakefield (4)
1 Rocco FerrarioSpace Rod TD .049 262 1 Bill Swift G Thomas 55 720
2 Don Deloach Super PearlCyclon .04 240 2 Glen Grell Le Fraver 680
3 Robert DonnelyDNF 3 Bruce Hannah Sky Farer 424
4 Ates Gurcan XL 56 280
A Gas
1 Robert DonnelyGalaxie Cox .15 181 P30
2 Rocco FerrarioStrega Cylon .061120 1 Don DeLoach Polecat 360
3 Justin Martin Kiwi DNF 2 Ates Gurcan Fantastic 355
3 Larry NorvallBobWhite TFin 321
B Gas
1 Robert DonnelySatellite 6K&B 3.5 600 HLG (4)
2 Al Mennano Big Dog K&B 3.5 360 1Robert Donnely 426
2Taren Malkhasyan 425
C/D gas (6) 3Don DeLoach 412
1 Randy Secor Gysob K&B .40S 840 4Rocco Ferrario 147
2 Guy Menanno Satellite 7Profi .40 700
3 Justin Martin Starduster9ST .40 678 Catapult Glider
4 Ed Decker TNT 760 K&B .40 348 1 Rocco Ferrano 234
5 Robert DonnelySatellite 7Nelson .40339 2 Don DeLoach Cata kid 228
6 James Kruse Blizzard 80K&B .40 167 3 Robert Donnely 185
Super D Gas Bud Romak Dawn Patrol gas
1 Guy Mennano Satellite 1HP.61 3601 Rocco FerraioSpace Rod TD .014 265
1/2A Nostalgia Bud Romak Dawn Patrol Rubber
1 Bruce Hannah Monks ModelMed .049 480 1 Bill Swift Dwarf Dip III 332
2 Roco Ferrario Top Banana Fox FAI .0306
Bob Hunter Memorial 12 sec HL, 15 sec VTO
A Nostalgia Gas (7) 1 Rocco FerrariTop Banana OS Max 1 .15 324
1 Randy Secor Cresendo OS .19 1200 2 Ed Decker Hawk 0.15 316
2 Walt Ghio Ramrod OS MaxIII1953 3 Guy Mennano Ramrod Veco .35 302
3 Mike Thompson Ramrod OS .15 685 4 Robert DonnelSatellite 6K&B 3.5 196
4 Bruce Hannah Fubar X OS .15 647
5 Justin Martin Kiwi OS Max III463 F1A (7)
6 Todd Reynolds Ramrod Os Max .15461 1 Ken Bauer 1245
7 Al Menanno Ambition Os Max .15317 2 Shlomi Rosenzwedg 1210
3 Blake Jensen 892
B Nostalgia 4 Jason Gersting 880
1 Bruce Hannah Monks ModelVeco .21 720 5 Aarna Appajapda 780
2 Justin Martin T Bird GH .21 453 6 Risto Puhakka 737
3 Al Menanno Spacer Johnson .2317 7 Johnny Mah-Gerssting 736
4 Randy Secor Lucky LindyMax .29 226
F1B(12)
C Nostalgia Gas (6) 1 Blake Jensen 1306
1 Justin Martin Lucky LindyOS MaxIII.960 2 Derak McGuckin 1280
2 Guy Mennano Ramrod 750 Veco .35 907 3 Dave Jensen 900
3 Bruce Hannah FAI Bar OS MaxIII.580 4 Walt Ghio 891
4 Todd Reynolds Ramrod OS MaxIII.319 5 Aurelius Lin 865
5 Robert DonnelyRamrod 1000OS Max ,35317 6 Alex Andriukov 860
6 John Sparling Jay’s Bird OS .35 120 7 Matt Kruse 837
8 Larry Norval 828
Mulvihull Rubber 9 Daryl Perkins 773
1 Don DeLoach Bazooka 492 10 Reema Buaradwaj 755
2 Mathew Kruse Comet Gull 401 11 Jerry Fitch 751
12 Mike Davis 449
Nostalgia Rubber
1 Bill Swift Becker Unlimited 537 F1C
2 Wayne Smith DNF 1 Taron Malkhasyan 840
Andrade Rubber F1Q (4)
1 Bill Swift Drawf Dip III 359 1 Mike Richardson 900
2 Glenn Grell Clould Buster 340 2 Clint Brooks 892
3 Ben Tarcher 853
Ramrod Event 4 Jack Murphy 821
1 Walt Ghio Max .15 953
2 Guy Menanno Veco .35 947 F1P
3 Mike Thompson OS Max III685 1 Emrick Smith 713
4 Todd Reynolds OS .15 461
5 Todd Reynolds OS .35 319 E-36
6 Robert Donnely OS .35 317 1 Jack Murphy Leaping Lizard 693
2 Lynn Edmondso TNT Electric 345
F1J 3 Larry NorvallSatellite 285
1 Mike McKeever 600
F1G (7)
F1S (6) 1 Walt Ghio (191 1st round) 600
1 Clint Brooks 600 2 Tiffaney O’De(182 1st round) 600
2 Jack Murphy 584 3 Jerry Fitch (181 1st round) 600
3 Larry Norvall 570 4 Mike Pykelny 570
4 Lynn Edmonson 537 5 Mike Davis 566
5 Don Deloach 360 6 Don DeLoach 476
6 Ben Tarcher 344 7 Mike Richardson 214
F1E 1st event ran by Mike McKeever F1E 2nd event ran by Mike Richardson
1 Jack Greening 1 Jack Greening
2 Blake Jenson 2 Mike Richardson
3 Mike Richardson 3 Mike Mckeever
4 Mike McKeever
5 Todd Reynolds
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Roger Morrell