Hello R/C group friends!

It's been a while since I've been around the R/C community.

Some of you will remember me from Toledo, Ann Arbour, NEAT or my Hawker Series or Chipmunk kits.

For the last 7 years, I've been inactive in the hobby, as most of my summer weekends have been taken up by my son's track and field activities. From the first time I saw him run down the track, I knew we'd better give this a high priority.

Well.... this sacrifice has paid off with my son earning the honour of competing for Team Canada at the IAAF World Youth Track and Field Championships that are being held in Cali Columbia next week. He's going in to the 110 m hurdles ranked 7th, based on his season's best time - a race where he stumbled coming out of the blocks (hopefully, a clean race will get him down into medal territory!!!!).


Newspaper article

Once again, I apologize for my seemingly sudden departure from the R/C scene, and I thank all of my R/C friends in advance for their support and best wishes for Joey down in Columbia.

For those of you who'd like to watch, there should be live streaming that can be found via the IAAF web site.





Ron Daniels

Congratulations!
Best of luck to your son at worlds. I can only imagine the pride you must feel.

Thanks! I'm not sure it's pride. Pride would imply that I thought that I shared in this accomplishment in some way. It's 100% him.

It might be joy, or even relief that none of the pitfalls and challenges along the way cost him his chance to compete against the best under-18 track athletes in the world, or (despite our low-key demeanor towards nationalism...) his chance to earn the right to wear the Maple Leaf while doing so.

You can't steal, cheat or buy your way into this position, so he's had to spend a large part of his childhood focused on getting to where he is right now. When he steps into those starting blocks for his 100 heats (he's a 2nd entry in the 100, which runs the day before the hurdles - his best event) it will be the culmination of a process that's taken nearly half of the years he's been alive.

Adding to this, Joey had a very tough off-season with a nagging track injury impeding his training, a very tough school work load eating up his time and a broken arm just to put the icing on the cake of a very tough winter.

To see him still reach this very difficult goal blows me away.

I don't think what he's accomplished will even hit him until many years into the future. Right now, he's too focused on getting down that track in the minimum possible time!

Results are in...

Video of the final. My son is in lane 6 in the black, white and red Canada outfit...

Matteo Ngo (FRA) 13.53 wins 110mH Final WOrld Youth Champs 2015 (1 min 26 sec)

Wow! Only 0.01 s from first!
I'm sure that's something you'll both remember for a long time.