Back In The Day, Part 25 - Planning A Grand Model Rocket Contest

Once contact had been established with all of the NAR members in the Mountain Region in 1978, the next step in my duties as Regional Manager was to put together some kind of large event to pull everyone together and inspire a higher level of activity and possibly the formation of some NAR sections.

I determined the best way to do that was to hold a NAR sanctioned regional contest.

At the outset of this project, I was pretty much working on my own,  Let me tell you, organizing a large model rocket contest meet on a solo basis can be a daunting task.  It wasn't until well after six months of initial planning and preliminary work that the remaining members of Skywatchers Rocket Club got on board to help out.

One thing that really was of immense assistance was an article published a few years earlier in American Spacemodeling Magazine.  This was Bill Stine's wonderful write-up about NARWIN-1
held in Arizona in 1977. 
The article described in detail the planning and operation of this excellent, well-run contest.

 I virtually used it as the blueprint for the upcoming event, dubbed HOTROC-1 (Heart Of The ROCkies) Regional.

The initial work I tackled (and funded) was setting a contest date, establishing a roster of events, applying for sanction with the NAR, printing up entry forms and mailing them out, arranging hotel accommodations, reserving a club-house for evening activities, procuring trophies and ribbons, contacting model rocket manufactures to ask for prize kit donations, designing HOTROC-1 jacket patches, arranging for the manufacture of those patches, designing the range set-up, printing up materials for the contestant packets, sending out press releases to the local newspapers, and all the other myriad details.

In the process of applying for the contest sanction, I learned from the Contest Board that a Regional Meet could only be hosted by a NAR section, rather than an individual member, so HOTROC-1 was established as an Open Meet instead.

The range set-up I designed was a unique form of the Misfire Alley system.  Rather than having a separate battery for each launch alley, the range would be set up to run off of two 12v car batteries with eight launch alleys. The alleys were arranged in two semi-circles of four pad sites.  Each semi-circle would share one of the batteries.  This set-up was quite adequate for the contest's requirements, and proved to be very efficient.

This is a scan of part of the contestant's packet material explaining the range setup at HOTROC-1.

The date set for HOTROC-1 was August 23-24, 1980. The events scheduled to be flown at the contest were Class A Parachute Duration, Class B Boost/Glide, Class C Streamer duration, Class D Super-Roc Altitude, Class D Eggloft Altitude, and Plastic Model Conversion.
 
Once the remainder of the Skywatchers club was 'all in', the rest of the puzzle pieces were put into place: getting the club PA system and tracking equipment in ship-shape working order, providing for porta-potties, building pad number signs, preparing posts and ropes to mark off range perimeters and launch alleys, lining up a local hobby vendor to operate a range store, and many other field /operational accommodations.

This was bound to be big!!

This is a scan of an original HOTROC-1 announcement sent to all Mountain States Region NAR members.

Artwork by me!

Next post:  More on HOTROC-1