A couple of years ago, I decided to put on a pylon workshop to assist the new race pilots, aspiring pilots who were to scared to just show up at a race and all the pylon regulars who wanted to help out the new guys and get in a little practice as well. We ended up with about 10~12 new or newish 424 pilots, and about 17~20 regular pylon racers there too. We began the day with a short class and some Q & A, then got all the regular pilots to break out with a new guy and help them get there equipment set up. After some set up modifications, the pros took the new guys out on the course, and helped getting their planes set up, trimmed and race ready. The rest of the day we worked with the new pilots on race strategy, calling, racing lines and anything else we could think of to help the newer pilots. By the end on the afternoon, we were running racing heats and settling some "grudge matches" between pylon regulars!
All in all, it was a great success as we gained a few new racers, and all had a great day of racing without the stresses of racing!
This is a document I put together and we gave out to all the pilots, which is just about every "trick" and hint to get a new guy competitive right out of the box. Feel free to use it if you would like to, just please drop me a note and let me know if it helped you. If you have anything you think should be added, let me know that also and we can revise it and give you credit for your contributions.
Enjoy!
