Before it was Rare Bear

[BellCobraIV]

I hope you didn't consider my post as an attempted insult, that wasn't my intention, it was just my experience with big time air racing. If we want to insult someone we could talk about the guy that discharged a fire extinguisher at flames coming out of the stacks. I'll bet he regrets that. It was a time, mostly good with a couple of bummers, I choose to remember fondly. You mentioned Gordon. I'd sit on a hot plate for his rub recipes these days. My mom asked me the other day if I still have any of that "rub your buddy made", I had to remind her that was almost 30 years ago and Gordon passed away over a decade ago. Gordon might've been a lot of things but I know for sure he was a great cook, aircraft electrician and mechanic. I learned a lot from him, a lot from Greg, a lot from Mel, a lot from Hickle, a lot from Gil, a lot from Fred, a lot from you and a lot from Lyle. How he kept the circus running on a shoestring and exceeding all expectations is a mystery. I'm glad I was able to play my small part.

Lief,
No on the contrary I hope you don't think I was knocking you. One time someone made the comment to me that I was only on the team because Lyle owned the airplane. Dwight Thorn gave me the opportunity to go to the Strega team. I got to make some pretty cool parts for Strega. I asked Lyle's permission to be on the Strega team and he asked me if I was going to win. I told him I was going to. He smiled and told me good luck. Matt Jackson leased the airplane that year....glad I missed that one.

Soon Dwight moved me from Strega to the Dago engine program.

[knot4u]

Lief,
No on the contrary I hope you don't think I was knocking you. One time someone made the comment to me that I was only on the team because Lyle owned the airplane. Dwight Thorn gave me the opportunity to go to the Strega team. I got to make some pretty cool parts for Strega. I asked Lyle's permission to be on the Strega team and he asked me if I was going to win. I told him I was going to. He smiled and told me good luck. Matt Jackson leased the airplane that year....glad I missed that one.

Soon Dwight moved me from Strega to the Dago engine program.

That was my last involvement with the airplane. Being named in a lawsuit as a saboteur on an airplane I volunteered to work on and had no potential of financial gain whether the airplane won, lost or didn't fly at all gave me a bad taste and I walked away a bit angry. FatHead still hasn't won a race, although he's spent plenty of other peoples money trying. He's flown Rare Bear, Strega and Voodoo and it must just be bad luck to never have won a race in any of the three fastest airplanes to ever compete. What do I know, I'm just a dumb mechanic.

[Lockheed Bob]

Not another peeing contest. No name calling. Watch out Wayne.

[RAD2LTR]

Not another peeing contest. No name calling. Watch out Wayne.

The way I read both Leif's and BCV's posts is that there is nothing meant toward either person. Leif left the team after being named in a lawsuit by the current owner, because he was a part of the team. It had nothing to do with BCV (who very clearly indicated that his statement was NOT a slight toward Leif.) I think we are good. That said, it would be interesting to hear the whole deal with the lawsuit, but not in this thread since this is about the very early days of RB. (Just trying to keep the thread on topic.)

Will

[knot4u]

The way I read both Leif's and BCV's posts is that there is nothing meant toward either person. Leif left the team after being named in a lawsuit by the current owner, because he was a part of the team. It had nothing to do with BCV (who very clearly indicated that his statement was NOT a slight toward Leif.) I think we are good. That said, it would be interesting to hear the whole deal with the lawsuit, but not in this thread since this is about the very early days of RB. (Just trying to keep the thread on topic.)

Will

I left before Lyle sold the airplane, so did a lot of the others who had been working on it, and it wasn't Lyles fault. The lawsuit that Matt filed included a bunch of names, including mine, as defendants. Eventually my named got dropped and as far as I know the whole thing was eventually dropped. I've never understood why he thought we were trying to sabatoge his effort, no one would benefit from standing down for that Sunday race. I was normally the person that would disassemble and clean the main engine oil filter after each flight and run the remains through a strainer so we could inspect it looking for any signs of metal in the oil. That morning (I think we may have done a dawn patrol flight) there was metal in the filter and the decision was made to stand down rather than risk his life and the airplane. He didn't like that idea and kept arguing to at least start the race so he could recover some money for a last place finish, the answer was a firm no and we didn't race on Sunday. The Bearcat was a large part of my life at that time, but I did have a life outside of it. I had a full time job, I'd bought a home and met my future wife, if I was going to be sued as a volunteer it just wasn't worth it anymore. John Slack and I have zero beef, I always have, and still do, consider him as a friend. We've communicated outside of these threads recently, there's no pissing match there. After that whole debacle there was a sea change regarding the crew, I only ever worked with a couple of them and they seemed like good, enthusiastic mechanics who wanted to go racing. I suspect I was probably just a bit burnt out and the lawsuit pushed me away even further.

[AAFO_WSagar]

The way I read both Leif's and BCV's posts is that there is nothing meant toward either person. Leif left the team after being named in a lawsuit by the current owner, because he was a part of the team. It had nothing to do with BCV (who very clearly indicated that his statement was NOT a slight toward Leif.) I think we are good. That said, it would be interesting to hear the whole deal with the lawsuit, but not in this thread since this is about the very early days of RB. (Just trying to keep the thread on topic.)

Will

Racers, whom both of the parties in this post are, generally have pretty thick skins, speak fairly bluntly, with little tolerance for BS...

Sometimes, some members take offense when they feel they are the target of the "gruffness" of the breed.. I tried to explain that to the last person who left the forum, to no avail.

Nothing to see here.... next..

[RAD2LTR]

Wayne, that was how I read it as well.

Leif, I didn't think you guys had any beef. I didn't know it was Matt that filed the lawsuit. I would hope that silliness would be dropped in short order. Was that the really great engine that was run at the 3K or was it someone else who nuked that?

This is an amazing thread and excellent to read. Please, keep rolling with it!

Will

[knot4u]

Wayne, that was how I read it as well.

Leif, I didn't think you guys had any beef. I didn't know it was Matt that filed the lawsuit. I would hope that silliness would be dropped in short order. Was that the really great engine that was run at the 3K or was it someone else who nuked that?

This is an amazing thread and excellent to read. Please, keep rolling with it!

Will

That was not the 3K engine that also set a new race record in the Sunday Gold later that summer. I think that engine ate itself the next year, if I'm wrong I hope John can correct me. They painted the stripes green for the new sponsor, green paint has always been considered bad luck in motorsports. Is it true? I have no idea. That happened the year before I started helping out on the airplane, I think the first time I saw it it looked like someone had been sanding the green off and a lot of the orange was peeking through. It really wasn't much to look at. At that particular time there was nothing from the firewall forward, no outer wing panels, no flight controls on the tail but it did have the canopy on it (it also had the prerequisite oil puddle/stain underneath it). Maybe I thought the canopy was intriguing, I don't know. During my time with it I think we went through 4 engines, some failed for material issues and there are questions about a couple of the others.

[knot4u]

The way I read both Leif's and BCV's posts is that there is nothing meant toward either person. Leif left the team after being named in a lawsuit by the current owner, because he was a part of the team. It had nothing to do with BCV (who very clearly indicated that his statement was NOT a slight toward Leif.) I think we are good. That said, it would be interesting to hear the whole deal with the lawsuit, but not in this thread since this is about the very early days of RB. (Just trying to keep the thread on topic.)

Will

No offense, but my name is Lief. I do remember one funny thing that happened out on the ramp once. There was a time that we were a pretty well oiled machine and sometimes we'd get the airplane out on the ramp early and then just relax in the shade the wings provided. I don't remember if it was a Saturday or a Sunday, but as we were just lounging around a few bees or yellowjackets decided to see what we were up to, I'm not a fan of flying insects with stingers and I started jumping around trying to swat them away. And then I turned around and saw a huge crowd of people looking at me as if I must've lost my mind, they must of thought I was either doing some weird new dance step or some sort of shaman dance to scare the evil away. To say I might've been a bit embarrassed would be an understatement, but we continued on.

[RAD2LTR]

No offense, but my name is Lief. I do remember one funny thing that happened out on the ramp once. There was a time that we were a pretty well oiled machine and sometimes we'd get the airplane out on the ramp early and then just relax in the shade the wings provided. I don't remember if it was a Saturday or a Sunday, but as we were just lounging around a few bees or yellowjackets decided to see what we were up to, I'm not a fan of flying insects with stingers and I started jumping around trying to swat them away. And then I turned around and saw a huge crowd of people looking at me as if I must've lost my mind, they must of thought I was either doing some weird new dance step or some sort of shaman dance to scare the evil away. To say I might've been a bit embarrassed would be an understatement, but we continued on.

Yes, I'm very sorry I didn't catch that. (Repeatedly.) Oddly enough, my spell check says the correct way to spell your name is wrong.(I before E, except after C, clearly spell check is dumb. )

Hahah, what is it about aircraft engine oil and yellowjackets/wasps? Its like they are drawn to it. You weren't the first person and won't be the last to do a variation of the dance. I've seen it done at airshows where people are sitting under the wing of something trying to do exactly what you were doing.

Will