Madera Prep 2

Welcome back to when Giant Scale Racing was more like the Wild West. Nobody knew what was really necessary to go fast, but everyone wanted to give it a go.
I have recently had a number of 20-25 year old VHS tapes converted to digital. This is the 2nd of several Giant Scale Racing videos that I will upload.
This is flight #5 or #6 on the 1st Giant Scale Racing plane I ever flew.
It was built by Paul Ross and Jim Miller, with help from Steve Shepersky, and was engineered by Don Westergren.
In this flight, we have cut 1" off the header pipes, which gained us a couple hundred RPM.
This video is a practice flight, in the desert East of San Diego.
Ultimately, we had 10-12 flights before getting to Madera in 1992, and the engine got some upgrades after this flight, along with some better pipes, and eventually a hand-carved prop from Don Westergren, that increased RPM and speed considerably...
These were exciting times for me. I was only 27, and had never seen, much less, flown...anything like this big monster. This was the most awesome plane I'd ever seen. I was honored and privileged to have been chosen by Paul and Jim to be their pilot.