Back In The Day, Part 36 - HOTROC-3

 The Third Annual Heart Of The Rockies regional contest meet was held in Colorado Springs over the weekend of August 21-22, 1982.

The meet was attended by 20 contestants from around the Mountain States with four NAR sections being represented: ROMAR (Colorado Springs), WARP (Utah) COSMIC (Denver), and KOSMO (Kansas).

The location of the meet had change slightly, as the field on which previous HOTROCs had been flown was purchased for development earlier in the year.  A new field was found on Fountain Boulevard on the east side of the Springs.  

For the third year in a row, I served as CD.

Events scheduled for HOTROC-3 were mostly in the duration categories.  ROMAR did not have adequate tracking equipment on hand, or enough trained trackers in the club to effectively run altitude events.  The variety of events was quite challenging, nonetheless.

Flown at the meet were:

Class A Parachute Duration, Class 1/2A Boost/Glide, Class D Egg-loft Duration, Class D Super-Roc Duration, Class A Rocket/Glide, Class B Helicopter Duration, and Streamer Spot Landing.

A new 'fun' event was added this year:  Odd-Roc, which brought out a number of creative and amusing rocket-powered objects!

Unfortunately, I do not possess a lot of photographs from the meet, as sometime back in the late 80s, I lost my 1982 rocketry log book.  Most of the photos in this post are scanned from the 4th quarter 1982 issue of The Cosmic Steppingstone, ROMAR's newsletter. These images aren't the greatest, so bear with me....

First, a group shot of the HOTROC-4 contestants:

Back row: Glade Gordon, Bill Penberthy, Larry Goldman, Ed Mitton, Roy Black, Brian Fox, Randall Redd, and Gary Price.

Middle Row: Ken Tenaka, Steve Sande, Mike DeRosier, Kevin Knapp, and George Fox.

Kneeling:  Tadd Jensen, Brian Newberry, Tim Collins, Kirk Rafferty, and Dr. Warren Layfield.

Not pictured:  Mike Mitchell and Steve Hamous.

Here is a scan of the official programme for HOTROC-3:

Randall Redd and Gary Price of Utah set to launch one of Gary's birds:

Mike DeRosier, cleverly disguised as Groucho Marx, puts a serious spin on range safety check:

The Odd-Roc entries on display:

As expected, the variety of contraptions was interesting - a flying fish, a large Pennzoil can, an 'Atlas Holding the Earth' figure, a flying Rubik's Cube, a fire hydrant, a Kootie...the list goes on. Also on the display table were the meet champion trophies for which the contestants were vying, and a number of cakes that were later raffled off.

A contestant readies his "Furry, googly-eyed, flying saucer....thing... for flight:

Odd-Roc turned out to be the most popular event of the meet, with the contestants heartily clamoring for a repeat in HOTROC-4 the next year.

After the dust had settled,Overall Meet Champion Brian Fox hoists the big trophy:

As the contestants were packing up and readying to head home, there was already enthusiastic talk of next year.....