I'm Like a proud papa seeing my designs win. Congratualtions to you guys!
I have a ton of respect for Ron Zaker jr. He kinda asked where my ff21 design came from. A big part of it was listening to what Ron has said to me over the years. I have shared designs with him and asked for his input several times.
The evolution of my FF21 started when I first got in to rc boats. I had very little money when I first started this hobby. I once made a rigger from a hunk of foam and a cox airplane .049 engine.... it was what i could afford. My first designs were from before I started racing. I'd seen some riggers in RC Boat Modeler and from the pictures tried to make one out of wood. I could never afford to buy one so I built if from scratch. I made several terrible designs. I then got a BBY .12 rigger and learned some from that. Then I built a few more of my own designs and each got a little better. When I started racing I was way behind in design. Every race Ron Z and Gary Preusse would dominate. So I started asking them what they thought of my designs. And they were very helpful. Eventually I had some more money bought a Roadrunner .45 and learned from that design and then built a Hawk kit and Learned from it also. I made good friends with Mike Z and learned more from him. So the FF21 is just everything I learned and liked from these great boaters/designs in the design I made. Ron, Gary and Mike all played a role in one way or another in the design. Thank you all for helping me over the years!
Right now my kids are just at the prime age where they really need me and I want to be an involved dad. It kills me to say it but my kids dont have an intrest in rc boats..... so I will do the things they love. I try to get to a couple races every year cause I love it! When my kids hit the teen years I figure they will be more intrested in girls/boys and ill get a lot more involved in boats again. Right now a couple races a year and a lot of keyboard racing is how I get my fix.
The JAE's have dominated the forum, killed my plan sales (I pay for all my hobby stuff from the plan sales and I dont make a lot doing it believe me!). But that's fine! Like others have said I'd much rather see our hobby and the classes I love grow. I would not run intlwaters if that were the case. My goal is to grow our hobby and have fun with it. I've personally built 2 JAE influenced designs. Like i've always done, I try to learn from the people that I know are the best at what they do. I add in what I learn from my own experience and enjoy designing my own boats. Rod and The JEA team have brought some completely new ideas that i dont think anybody can say don't work. I think some of it is revolutionary in rigger design. I have some of my own ideas and will likely try them with JEA ideas.....
The other thing is.... the older I get the more I realize the ideas of the people i'm learning from are usually better than mine. So ill try my own idea, realize it don't work, then do as They told me to do in the first place
you could say the FF21 is everything I learned in the first place.
Congratulations to my friends down under!!!
