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four times and raced a motorcycle at the race track. April 8th to 12th he flew at the Birmingham, Alabama, meet with Oscar Brindley, Paul Peck, Fred Schneider and Charles Richter, the event having been sponsored by the Business Mens League. 
During May Mestach moved to Cicero Flying Field, Chicago, Illinois, as a base for exhibition work and began flying there. A flying Meet was held at the Field for four days over Decoration Day and Mestach competed with Max Lillie, Paul Studensky, Marcel Tournier and Otto Brodie. There were numerous events and passengers and mail were carried. That season Mestach was busy flying exhibitions trough the midwest and northeast including dates in Maine.
July 11th to 19th he and James ward were at Winnipeg, Canada, where Mestach had a bad smashup while trying to fly in too high winds. He was not injured but it terminated his flying  there, and he shipped his wrecked plane back to Chicago for repairs. On August 3rd he flew at Grand Forks, North Dakota, then August 10th and 11th he was at Joliet, Illinois, with James Ward. August 22rd to 26th he exhibited at Quebec, Canada, and the 28th was at Norwich, New York, at the Chenango County Fair. September 3rd he flew at Olean, New York, at a local fair and circled the city several times.
Mestach then returned to Chicago to prepare for the 1912 Air Meet held at Cicero Field September 12th to 21st. This was a large event and he was competing with fourteen other contestants. The daily events consisted of racing, bomb and mail bag dropping, accurate landings, and similar activities.
There, on September 14th Mestach was involved in a very serious accident while flying in a free- for-all race around pylons when his faster monoplane overtook and flew directly into the tail of Howard Gill's type EX Wright biplane, tearing away the entire tail assembly, causing Gill to crash from about 50 feet altitude.
Mestach was able to veer off, but out of control, he crashed a short distance from Gill's wreckage. Gill was taken from the wreckage critically injured an died on the way to the hospital. Mestach sustained injuries which ended his flying for remainder of the season and he returned to France in November. The wreckage of his plane was held for damages and sold to William Somerville of Coal City,Illinois, at auction in January, 1913.