Whoa, whoa, whoa. 1.2 C?!It’s going to make for an interesting “unlimited class” when some UFO’s join-in around the pylons!
412 mph!
412.4 mph!
1.2 C, wow!
It’s going to make for an interesting “unlimited class” when some UFO’s join-in around the pylons!
412 mph!
412.4 mph!
1.2 C, wow!
The availability of all of the runways "inside" of the course at Stead saved a lot of racers with emergencies over the years, and there were still accidents out in the desert. I haven't seen any pictures of what Roswells plan is. Reno was the perfect place for those races with the race airport being just a short drive out of a town filled with casinos/hotels and an airport big enough to handle the commercial traffic. I hope it'll work out but even when the first races were held at the "Sky Ranch" in 1964 at least the spectators could go back to town and get a shower and a steak. I'm fairly certain that's what Greenameyer was thinking. He blew the competition away in his modified bearcat but was disqualified for refusing to operate on the steel mat temporary runway after deciding it was unsafe and opted to use Reno/Tahoe airport as home base instead. Mira Slovak was declared the winner in another bearcat. I spent some time around both of these men and they were very different.
www.kitplanes.com
But that's Las Cruces not Roswell right? The sport class front runners are already running faster than the "air show" unlimiteds. I know numbers are important but fast unlimiteds put butts in seats. A Lancair going by at 400 mph is not the same as a Mustang or a Bearcat going 450-500 mph. I hope it continues, but if the big dogs don't come out to play it's more of an air show rather than an air race right? My perspective regarding the whole endeavor is very skewed. It was not a vacation or a party for us, we went to race first and foremost, having fun along the way was appreciated but that was not why we were there.LRU has a much more favorable runway layout (very similar to Stead) and the 3 courses that are about to be certified are actually legal per the FAA standards, unlike Reno
Training to Win… Next October - KITPLANES
They’re already going 350 mph down on the deck in Las Cruces, New Mexico and there is much more in the works. To begin with the news, Sport Class air racing held a four-day Pylon Racing Training Camp at Las Cruces International this last weekend. The invitation-only, non-spectator event allowed...
yup, just throwing it out there that a course now exists for the 425+ movers outside of the RARA realm. still gotta make it financially worth it for the big boys to come play, NM isn't exactly in their backyard like Reno used to be
If it's Roswell it can still be RARA, just saying. Save a penny here and a nickel there, someday you'll have a dollar.
Odd story or rumor about those races. The promoters figured a clipped wing Bearcat would scrub speed through the corners more than a Mustang. Bearcat has a very thick wing and we led every lap of every race we flew in Phoenix. Eventually there was some fisticuffs tossed around after after the crowd had left regarding the prize money. They tried to make the course tighter to hinder us, bearcat didn't give a •, it just started eating...
if the purses weren't so far off historical norms there might be an argument
With very few exceptions the fastest unlimiteds weren't owned and built by folks with deep pockets. They weren't poor, but they weren't exceedingly wealthy either. Tiger Destefani is a farmer from Bakersfield, he and a group of volunteers built Strega. Lyle Shelton was a retired Navy pilot and was an active airline pilot, he and a group of volunteers built what would eventually become Rare Bear. By the time I started working on the bearcat Lyle had retired from TWA and was funding the the project to reassemble the airplane (after it was disassembled when the engine blew up in '92) from his pensions, donations and any sponsorship he could find. As we reassembled the airplane there were many times when everything came grinding to a halt because we couldn't afford the parts we needed. Most times we'd shift our focus to other things we could accomplish but sometimes there wasn't a darn thing we could do without having to undo it when we got the parts we needed. At that point we'd just BBQ. We ran on a shoestring or credit card budget. But eventually we got it done and the airplane went racing again, and it was fast. To say that prize money or ad revenue is inconsequential to having the fastest airplanes show up seems either disingenuous or ignorant. I remember Lyle telling me the cost of the hull insurance he was required to carry to go to Reno one year, it was half of what I'd paid for my first house that year. There's an old story about Jerry Duty, he ran RARA way back in the day, telling a bunch of pilots who were complaining about how much it cost them to get there to race and the relatively minuscule purse the races paid out. I can only paraphrase, but from what I was told by someone that was there he said "I could fill a chrome bucket full of manure as a prize and you all would still show up to race.". This angered a lot people and some changes were made. It might cost $250.000 to actually participate in a race where the prize was $100,000 if you won first place. When the numbers get big all you're left with is billionaires with airplane collections that want to go to air shows, and the fast airplanes stay home.
vintageaviationecho.com
