PHO T O: KIM VE SEL Y Above: Balloons approach the target in 2009. He (She) Who Has the Most Fun Wins was actually over the target, but it created a problem if The years after the Second World Championships the giant weed landed outside the target area on, well, brought a large and deliberate shift in Balloon Fiesta something it shouldn’t have landed on. So within a competition and the atmosphere of the event in few years the tumbleweeds gave way to lighter scoring general. The 1976 Balloonmeister, Bob Ruppenthal, put materials, such as ping pong balls with streamers and it this way: “He who has the most fun wins,” and the large film boxes (remember those?) . . . but serious pilots competitive tasks he chose reflected this philosophy. complained that these lightweight objects reacted too The tasks still tested a pilot’s ability to accurately and unpredictably when falling towards the target through safely maneuver to a target, but with twists. changing winds at different altitudes. The Tumbleweed Drop may be the best-remembered Another event that didn’t turn out too well was task from this era. Pilots launched a set distance from a variation where the targets were inflated toy the Balloon Fiesta field, harvested a tumbleweed, flew balloons tethered above the ground, and pilots had to the target, and dropped said tumbleweed. It soon to pop the balloon to reveal a prize as they flew by. To became obvious that bigger, heavier tumbleweeds accomplish this task, each pilot was issued an “official were less likely to drift with the wind on the way down popper,” a skewer with a tag on it for the pilot’s name. than little bitty ones. So it wasn’t long before wily pilots Unfortunately, the poppers weren’t very effective at started jettisoning tumbleweeds the size of Volkswagen impaling a moving toy balloon on a string from a moving Beetles onto the targets. All well and good if the balloon balloon. And if the poppers were not well-secured in the OFFICIAL PROGRAM 225