# Small club, Small Team Fliers, Big Results



## lawman (Jul 19, 2005)

*Just a little history:*

The Winchester Fliers Invitational Club (WFI) is located in Southern California and is just one small club that makes up part of “The 395 Concourse of Southern California”. The 395 Concourse is made up of 15 clubs and over 160 members. The Southern border is the common border between the United States and Mexico. The Northern border is approximately 100 miles north with a width of approximately 50 miles (Orange County to Palm Springs). The WFI club sits approximately in the middle of the concourse and is east of the main line of flight.

The Winchester club has been around almost from the beginning of the 395 Concourse. At one point it almost went into oblivion as older members left and or passed away. In Jan 2005 five members came together and reorganized the club. From those five members we have now expanded to 13 full members and their families.

The Motto of most of our Fliers is simple; “Breed Quality not Quantity “, then provide them with adequate housing, training and the best feed you can obtain.

The results will then speak for themselves.

Three truly outstanding members:

While all of the members of the WFI club, in this writers opinion are truly “outstanding”. We have over the last two years had three members who have compiled some amazing results. 

*In the 2009 young birds,* Roberto Garcia won the coveted AU “Cher Ami” award. For having the top young bird loft in the entire American Racing Pigeon Union. Roberto started the season with 5 birds, Yes just five birds and during most of the season flew only three to each race. 

Roberto got started in pigeons as a young boy in Guadalajara Mexico. He used to watch his neighbors racing pigeons fly around the loft. His neighbor later gave Roberto his first racing pigeons. Roberto contributes his success to having good stock and healthy pigeons. Roberto also credits his Nephew Miguel Garcia who acts as his loft manager for taking good care of the birds and his good friend Julius Rourk training them.

*In 2010 Old birds,* my sister in law Melissa Whitmer won the coveted “GI Joe” award. This was for the having the top Middle Distance loft in the entire American Racing Pigeon Union. Melissa started the old bird season with 15 birds and on most races flew between 3-5 birds. Once during the season she flew a single bird to the race and was able to take 1st place club, 1st place section, and 17th overall in the concourse. 

Melissa started flying pigeons in 2007 when her husband Steve began having breathing problems. Melissa took over the loft manager duties; she handpicked her young bird team from the youngsters in the loft. It was some of the birds from that original young bird teams that helped her win the GI Joe award in 2010. 

Melissa attributes her success to starting with a good solid foundation of birds, good loft management and training. 

*Just recently* we had another member of the WFI club stand out above all the rest. Nick Scarpine and his friend Leo, each entered five birds into *Mark Rozwadowski’s “California Late Hatch Classic”.* Out of their combined team of ten birds, two of Nick’s birds made it to the race. This was a one loft race with the home loft being located in Perris California. The race itself was from out of Goodyear, Arizona and released on 3-6-11 (approx 286 miles to the east). 

*Here’s what Mark had to say about the race, *“what a tough, race it just might be the toughest race I have ever flown in my life, Nick and Leo had the best bird that day, for sure, the only day bird”. Nick is again a small team flier who usually only flies between 5-10 birds to most club races.

To all of you new to the sport; the examples above show that you do not have to fly 50 to 100 birds or more to be competitive and to take top National awards. If you concentrate on raising quality birds and provide them with a healthy loft and good training you can produce some really big results.

*Submitted by *
Ron Whitmer “Lawman”
WFI Club President and 
395 Concourse President


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## Alamo (Nov 22, 2008)

AMEN !!!!..........................Alamo


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## NayNay (Mar 16, 2011)

Lawman, thanks so much for sharing this- it gives me hope, since small is about all I can manage. Besides, I'd rather have 5 quality birds to race than a mob of 50 that get 50% losses at each race. I'm still super new, but absorbing all info I can get like a sponge, and hanging onto what resonates best for me. 

This resonates: *Breed Quality not Quantity*


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## Fly_high (Mar 30, 2011)

lawman said:


> *Just a little history:*
> 
> The Winchester Fliers Invitational Club (WFI) is located in Southern California and is just one small club that makes up part of “The 395 Concourse of Southern California”. The 395 Concourse is made up of 15 clubs and over 160 members. The Southern border is the common border between the United States and Mexico. The Northern border is approximately 100 miles north with a width of approximately 50 miles (Orange County to Palm Springs). The WFI club sits approximately in the middle of the concourse and is east of the main line of flight.
> 
> ...


You are too Funny Lawman..... The news about your Hocus Pocus club results have already reached most of the fanciers in the United States and here in Canada. Remember the Saying in any kind of sport *"It is not how you win the game it is how you play the game."* My friend Nick and Leo's result in the one loft race is the only real results and real thing you posted here. So cut the crap out and play the sport fairly.....


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## boneyrajan.k (Jul 15, 2010)

Sounds good


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## pigeon is fun (Sep 6, 2010)

amen!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## lawman (Jul 19, 2005)

Fly_high said:


> You are too Funny Lawman..... The news about your Hocus Pocus club results have already reached most of the fanciers in the United States and here in Canada. Remember the Saying in any kind of sport *"It is not how you win the game it is how you play the game."* My friend Nick and Leo's result in the one loft race is the only real results and real thing you posted here. So cut the crap out and play the sport fairly.....


*play the sport fairly.....* hum that would be why the national data base was changed so that anyone who flew less than 5 birds to a single race was unfairly penalized. Because crybabies like yourself cannot pick your birds out and send only the best to a race. 

As for the results not being real then I would say you have not read the lastest AU Update (front page Old Chum), Robertos and Melissa accomplishments are posted in black and white for all time and anyone can verify them.

As for you knowing Nick and Leo, Hogwash then your not from Canada! and your lying to everyone on the site about who and what you are. 

So I will end by simply saying this Old Chum, Make certain your not living in a house of glass when you start throwing stones!


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## lawman (Jul 19, 2005)

PS: Just a little update for the hater’s out there of small team fliers and club’s.
In roughly November 2013 the WFI club; due to several older members’ leaving this world so they could fly with the Angels and their birds that had already preceded them into the next world. Chose to merge with another club (IEIC) in our local area that had gone through similar losses, each of our clubs were struggling with the loss of members who were sorely missed. Together as a merged club we have become much stronger and we are truly flying with a great group of pigeon fliers.

In 2014 my brother and I decided to enter birds, to be flown in 2015 in Mark Rozwadowski’s “California Late Hatch Classic” http://www.latehatchclassic.com/ 

You see the haters out there spent the better part of the last 5 years dissing on us because we have typically refrained from sending our birds to any one loft races (supposedly we could only win in a small club setting).This was primarily due to a bad experience back in the 80’s where we found out (about two years after the fact) that our birds were considered too good to allow them to go to the race. So after the birds were loaded onto the transport our birds were pulled and killed. Quite frankly it left an overall bad taste in our mouths about one loft races and we have simply chosen for the most part not to play in that part of our sport.

However after getting to know Mark better and seeing how he runs his operation at the “California Late Hatch Classic” to include being the very first one loft race to use GPS tracking in order to show exactly where the birds were released on race day.

We chose to put three special pairs of birds together, one pair was our version of the Arendonk Janssen’s (original pairs imported directly from Europe) crossed with a Cock given to us by Carl Jarson, one pair was pure Arendonk Janssen and the last pair was a cross of Arendonk Janssen and Black Giant blood (also imported by us from Europe). We ultimately chose these 6 birds to enter into the race and in January and February of 2015 the 150, 200 and 300 mile races were flown and the results of the birds speak for themselves. As two of our 6 birds hit in the money on two different races, a stand alone first place win at the 150 and equal first place win (13 birds on the drop) at the 300. 

So like I have said before: To all of you new to the sport, the examples above show that you do not have to fly 50 to 100 birds or more to be competitive and to take top National awards (or top wins). If you concentrate on raising quality birds and provide them with a healthy loft and good training you can produce some really big results. In the process you will upset the big mob fliers to boot! (as you can see for yourself by previous posts)

Lawman


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## Pollo70 (Jan 3, 2012)

Amen! too that I'm also a small team flyer...


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## Lovelace (Jan 10, 2008)

Yes, Me also I only raised 17 in 2014 this year I am only raising 15, I am working it down to 12 for next year.


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