August 16th - The Okie Derby Race Day  0600 and we are out the door for breakfast and to race off to the airport for the Okie Derby. We doa quick "low tech" weather check. Hmmmm ... looks a bit foggy; but maybe it is just a little early morning mist. We arrive at the airport to find less than minimums and getting foggier. Hurry up and wait (have we all done this before?).

The weather briefing is not promising. Wiley Post is less than IFR; other airports on the route are IFR and there is a cloud deck at 20,000' that wil not allow the sun through for a fast burn off. So we wait. After many delays and on again, off again weather briefings, we are given an alternate route at 1130 with the caveat that we are leaving at high noon one one of the routes - we will find out as we mount our mighty steeds on the ramp. Quick re-calculations are needed. We crunch some numbers, come up with a new estimated time and fuel consumption and we are off to Wild Mama.

Once on the ramp, we learn that were are VFR for the whole original route, so we trash our re-calculations and resurrect the old ones and wait for our turn to fire up and fly. Okie 1 is ready. The two minute count and we are ready. We are given the high sign to start our engine. We start and begin our taxi. Jessica goes to call the tower and she is blocked by a pilot calling for his IFAR clearance. She cannot get in. Our fuel is wasting away. His rather lengthy clearance is read to him; he repeats incorrectly and asks for a re-read. We are wasting fuel and can do nothing about it ARGH!!! Finally our slow penned pilot gets it right and we get our permission to taxi. Darn - that will hurt; but we will deal with it. Off we go!

We climb out to 2,500', make our power setting and settle down for the ride. Jessica navigates and handles the radio. Suzanne is our timer and Lynne is the artist to draw the chevrons.

 We pass the farm fields, oil wells and rivers. We hear Okie 1 make the first turn. We will be there in another 10 miles. Here we come. "Okie 2, 5 miles out". We are ready for our first fly by. We spot the chevron and are ready for airport 2. So far, so good. We fly over a windmill tower and head for Wontonga, collect the chevron and check the time. On, no. We are 9 minutes ahead of schedule. We deploy the speed brakes - 10 degres flaps and landing gear. We slow to 100 kts. to start burning up time. OK - 360 to the left. S- turns, Another 360 to the right. We are coming in to Wiley Post, we make a long entry to the downwind, throttle back - our ground speed is down to 65 kts, nose her up and ... time! Ok, back to the business of landing and fuel conservation. We land and go for the long taxi in. The fuel judges come out for us to verify 0.00 on the fuel and they cover it up. I fuel the plane. I should not have changed the fuel caps last week as I cannot see into the tank. It seems to be full but the left tank is taking on more fuel. I better quit and go to the right tank. Nothing. It is completely full. Shoot. I better go back to the left tank and see if more will go in. I shoot a bit more in. OK, done. And the reveal:  .6 gallons over. OK, not bad as that is exactly what we did last year. I hope our time is OK. We hear others getting their fuel readings: some are not so good, but .2 gallons from Theresa. Whoa - that's good. Best so far then someone hits dead on the fuel.

Jessica, Lynne and Suzanne headed off to the 99s museaum. It was Jessica's third visit but with new exhibits to see, it was as interesting as ever. Suzanne had to do some shopping - that's what girls do, given the opportunity. The museum is located at the Will Roger's World Airport (OKC) and is near both the airline terminal and FBO. If you go thorugh OKC, plan on a visit. It's well worth while.

I go check the times. We are 3 seconds too fast. Well that is better than the 9 minutes we started with; but is it good enough. Theresa check her time. Whoa, again 2 seconds off. That's good. Let's see what the others do.

The banquet was a blast - good eats and lots of fun. We sat together with Mike and Theresa and Mike and Linda Ely. The awards came. As we expected Theresa White and Mike Werner took first place with 2 seconds and .2 off.  As for the Paradise ladies . . . 7th place with 3 seconds and .6 gallons off. The competitin was close; the race was a blast and we learned much for our own upcoming event, the Sunshine Derby on November 22nd. Now we check weather, pack and get ready for the trip back to Floridaq tomorrow. 

August 17th: Homeward Bound  The trip was way too short and way too fun but it was time to head out early in the morning. We had been watch ing weather report about Tropical Storm Fay and we did not know what was to come, but we wanted to be back in Florida for whatever it was.

Today, unlike yesterday morning, was perfect VFR out of Wiley Post. We decided to stay low and do some sight-seeing along the way home as the winds aloft were - you guessed it -, stronger headwinds than they were low. We also managed to have some cloud cover keeping the morning cool; but the day was extremely hazey with pretty rotten visibility. After a bit as we headed toward the Arkansas border, the clouds lifted enough and the winds shifted enough that we could climb to 5500', then 7500' for a while and we picked up about 10 kts on the ground speed.As we approached Mississippi, however, the clouds came in forcing us to go back down to ground level in time for our first re-fueling stop at Yazoon, MS.

Approaching Yazoo we saw several crop dusters in Air Tractors hard at work. We landed and turned off for fuel while they were busy back and forth, landing on 35, taking off heavily loaded on 17, out and back again. We tried to re-fule but the credit card reader had been struck by lightening and we had to wait for Bubba, the proprietor, to come and assist us. In short order we were back on our way, low, flying VFR, to see and avoid the build-ups above us. The day was now hot and the ride was bumby but we did not have to deviate too much for storms. It gave us an opportunity to talk about the Sunshine Derby and all the work ahead of us to make the Sunshine Derby as successful as the Okie Derby has been for the past 30 years.

Finally, the storms got the best of us as they started popping to the left and right. We landed at Marianna to get some lunch, take a break, give the storms time to pass and re-assess our last leg. By 1800 we were ready to hit the air again. We decided on low altitude VFR again to keep our eyes on the build-ups which has dissipated to widely scattered by now. Refreshed and reinvigorated, we pressed on, only 2 hous from home.

With minor deviations we made our way to Plant City before things got ugly. A line of storms had blown up over Lakeland and stretched toward Wachula. We headed for Arcadia, to the west of the squawl line, to shoot back to the west after we passed Arcadia. We could not out-run the building line. There had been a 20 mile gap just northeast of Punta Gorda, but the time we got there, the gap was lightening filled and we could see from the storm scope that passage was unsafe. We saw a break in the rain and lightening and dove through. It wa s rough 5 miles or so but we passed the line and headed home to LaBelle. With only 20 miles to go, the storm scope lit up: lightening covered our path and was striking directly over top the airport. Lynne suggested Arcadia. We looked and it was now in the clear. We landed there and turned back on the taxiway to face LaBelle. We saw the lightening move off to the east. Now was the time. It was getting dark; the clouds were low and rain and lighteneing were all around us. We put Wild Mama in race mode and made the last dash to LaBelle. By 2030 we made in straight in on runway 14, safe and sound - an exciting last 30 minutes of an otherwise uneventful flight.

We are all tired, say our good nights and head home for the next adventure: Tropical Storm Fay.