by Bruno Macedo ----

Brazil held, so far, 2 IMAC Contests – IMAC São Carlos, on March 13^th – 15^th and IMAC Piraju, on April 17^th – 19^th.

On both events we tried to run a complete new format of competition from what we have been doing here. Now, we basically follow the IMAC Official Contest Standard guide, which led us to a more dynamic and cost-efficient event. Compared with the contests we have been doing, this new format made us fly twice the sequences in the half of the days. This format is also perfect for the idea of more regional contests spread throughout the country. Just to let you know, last year we had only 1 IMAC in the whole country! This year we already scheduled 5.

All the contests focused on some goals which I considered key to make IMAC grow in Brazil:

1) Learning: Events started with a complete judging school, going thru all the Red Book, family by family. Then experienced pilots were invited to take place judging, while non-experienced pilots were invited to help as scribes. This way we tried to give a complete vision of what is IMAC judging from theory to practice. And the learning doesn’t only focused on judging but in the entire contest staff: line boss judge, scorekeepers, etc…

2) Bring new faces to the party: Smaller, less expensive contests are bringing new pilots to IMAC. I estimated a number of 20 – 25% of first time competitors on each event. The contests also have lots of report material on the Brazilian model aircraft media. Each contest so far had a DVD, made by a professional guy, and YouTube links are used to show to everyone what is going on and motivated more people to join in the next time. Here comes a link to a short clip from one of the DVD’s :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqekcdW6BDs

3) Bring new members to IMAC: Following the recommendations we set a $10, which is about BRL 20, discount to IMAC members and encourage non members to join the association.

4) Bring IMAC to every region of the country: These two first events happened in the state of Sao Paulo, which is used to have IMAC events. Now the next 3 ones are going out of this state and we can expect a much larger number of new faces. The IMAC Pinhais is already registered and the site is online : www.imacpinhais.com.br

Each contest ran 3 precision classes – Basic, Intermediate and Unlimited – and also de Freestyle. A very fast start line could be done, but we didn’t try the 2 flight lines yet. So, this limited us to maximum number of 24 pilots on each contest. But, this number doesn’t limited to a big number of regular IMAC competitors to come and also new faces join too.

So far the goals are being well achieved and people are reacting really well do them. Everyone here wants to fly and to know what is IMAC and with this new phase coming, outside of the state of São Paulo, we have high hopes to have a breakthrough year for IMAC in Brazil.

Bruno Macedo
Brazil ARD
IMAC Latin America Committee