[secant0give]

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Ef1 would be a good class to get into, there's not a lot of people flying it.
If you have everything prepared and be consistent it wouldn't be too difficult for a new comer to win an EF1 day.

erm !!!! what exactly are you saying here .

This is exactly why I got my shoestring. Being new to Pylon, I noticed early on that there were less people flying EF1 and if I flew in this class, I wouldn't have to compete against so many of the ACE pilots who nearly all fly Q-500. I realised that I could fly an EF1 at McCoy field for practice 'cause there are no noise issues with these. And with a bit of effort and a lot of stick time I felt sure I could do well. This is a logical approach, one I would normally take. However all that went right out of the window when I was calling for SRL at Richmond around this time last year. At the end of the race instead of doing his usual aerobatics at the edge of the horizon while the other planes finished, he handed me the TX and said take her for a quick fly while they finish and land.
I can tell you, at that point it must have been all over, because logic went right out the window, emotion took the upper hand, next thing I know, two thunder tiger 46's and two Viper airframes turn up in the post. I've been struggling to get stick time on them ever since .........................Even so I wouldn't swap them for the world, they fly so nicely, nicer than a rarebear and they have a wonderful smell and sound. When they get near the end of their fuel, instead of slowly dying off like an electric machine, they lean out and go even harder which lets you know it's time to come down but strongly tempts you to fly longer.

They make an oily mess and they need to be carefully laid up soon after running. With an electric machine you just unplug the lipo and put it away. With the Q-500s it goes on and on, one step forgotten may reduce their reliability to the point of disaster or at best embarrassment. I fully drain the tanks and oil the engines thoroughly so they don't gum up or worse, rust the bearings while in storage. The Things vibrate like mad!! As you know a single cylinder engine can never be balanced 100% it's always a compromise and everything must be set up to take the punishment of that vibration. When we race I set the two planes up ready to go, both fuelled, both tuned, both test flown and trimmed before each race day starts. It takes more effort and commitment than an electric plane. I fuel up both planes, start and run the oil out of them with an old glow plug for about 1/3 of a tank, Then I change plugs and tune the engine with about 1/2 a tank of fuel that way it doesn't get too lean like it could if you started tuned with a full tank. (Bloody hell don't forget to fill then again either)
You need a spare plane to be ready to go straight away. No one is going to wait while you put a plane together and tune it, If you do this you'll miss a race and get a DNF and you don't want to start the next race with an out of trim or badly tuned plane. You may be calling for someone in the next heat so you can't let them down while you bugger around getting a spare ready. If I need the spare plane I want to just go and get it from the pits and it's ready to race fuel and all. That's all they will wait for!! Once I have to stress about things, my focus suffers, If I need a spare plane I'm probably already a little stressed. Did I mention the batteries ?? Q-500s need their batteries charged and checked before flying too and put at storage charge afterwards as well.

EF1 is definitely easier to do well, especially if you can focus on flying and not have to do all the rest of the IC engine management, maintenance, tuning, cleaning, fault finding etc. As anyone who has tinkered with glow plug engines will know, just getting things right on the ground can soak up a lot of mental energy, let alone the flying, which is always very intense.
You've got to bear in mind that you can't use the cranky glow engine's favourite pacifier, which is of course, "nitro methane". You must make it run reliable and hard on FAI fuel which is 4:1 methanol and Caster. This is not as easy to do, but.........................that's the rules