Midwest Power 12

The culmination of my fastest L3-class build ever was also my first Wildman drag race ever! We built the motors the night before in Tim's shop, but I discovered the next day that the forward closure of mine didn't seat all the way down. Eep! Luckily, Dr. J was able to throw some elbow grease into it and get things to settle in place. It was muddy and I stepped on my leads, so I didn't go on the first round (and I wore the dress, giving Teresa a fantastic (?) contact photo for her phone), but on the second try, the M3100WT lit and pounded the poor V2 into the sky at a breathtaking clip. I was worried about the big heavy nose cone drag separating from the booster at burnout, but motor shutdown came and went with nary a hiccup. I lost track of it before apogee, but we followed the tracking signal to the other side of the standing corn and came out victorious: 14,119', not bad!

Gus offered me an M2200SK as a graduation present, and who am I to turn him down? The only problem was I was still out recovering my V2 when the big 4"/3" drag race was scheduled to happen, so at first I didn't think I'd get to fly. But just after I got back, they were gathering the entrants, so I started prepping feverishly and managed to get 95% of the way there before they finished at the pads. Chuck Haskin helped me thread the shock cord around the 7600 case (the trickiest part of prep), and finally I was ready to go. But I'd missed the race. Luckily, Kittell had misfired on the previous round, so I was able to have at least one racing partner! Chris and Jason helped me load up on the pad and after a quick happy snap we retreated into the field for a better camera angle. Gus's igniter worked magic and I beat Kittell off the pad, but he ended up besting my altitude by a few thousand feet since he had a special 98mm demo motor from Dr. J (lucky dog!). Many seconds of fire, brimstone, and fury later, we began the recovery hunt, finding the rocket across 1850 E not too far into the field. Two Ms in one day? Not too shabby!