I love the Reno noises and such, but I really started to get interested in closed course racing with the rise of the Sportsman Class. My fave era of air racing was the pre-war Cleveland era where civilians flew designed, built, and raced the fastest land planes around and would lap the military planes (Doug Davis in the first Travel Air Mystery Ship). Sportsman was kind of lighting those entrepreneurial, do something kick ass kind of vibes for me.
