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Now, the T-6 Class presents a whole different way of looking at the Races. The competitiveness, the sounds, the view from the Pylons, and the slower speeds, all combined for a completely new experience for me, the Air Race Addict. The colors on some of the T-6 aircraft are just simply, brilliant. I have always been at least as far away as the grandstands while they are flying and have always wondered why the pictures that one sees in the programs and advertisements are always so nice. Now I know. This particular race was really good between the first four aircraft for
most of the race. Nick Macy eventually finished first, leading the race from start to finish, in Race #6, "Six Cat". Al Goss finished in Second with #75, "Warlock", the venerable veteran of
at least twenty years of Air Racing. The closest finish was between third and fourth place, with James Good in #77, "Wyoming Wildcatter", and Jerry McDonald in #5, "Big Red", another long time Racer. They finished the Race less than 1 second apart! Very exciting finish. Keith McMann finished in 5th place in #64, "Red Knight". John Zayac, in #12, "Thumper", pulled out at the start with a mechanical problem. This wasn't the first excitement of the week for John and ol' Thumper. He was flying from Colorado on his way to Reno, when he had to make an emergency landing on the on a street in a suburb of Denver.(Read About It Here!) He got down this time at the airport of origin, thankfully. Anyways, this race was a great introduction to me for my first day at the Pylons. Up to this point, I was thrilled with all that I had seen so far, and just hoped like crazy that my photos would turn out okay. I wouldn't know for at least a week. Next on the agenda was a little more difficult proposition, with my up close and personal first shots at the Sport Class Racers. Please click on the thumbnail.....Well, you know the drill{;-)
| 1st 226.442 #6 |
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course until they return to the home Pylon, (start/finish line). One thing that is cool about that is the people out on the back straight, (also known as the "Valley of Speed"), get a good look at these aircraft. After that, they fly the shorter course set up for their class. During the start, the first thing to happen was this. The aircraft were coming down the chute, when there was this howl like a siren. Now, I've been working around props for a long time, (A&P Mechanic), and I had never heard that sound. But, I knew exactly what it was. David Anders in #25, a Questair Venture named "Eggstra Special", (a play on the appearance of the aircraft resembling an egg), was experiencing a failed propeller governor and an overspeeding prop. He immediately pulled up to gain altitude and slow his airspeed down, thus slowing the airload on the prop, thus slowing the prop down. He was successful, and brought his plane down for an uneventful landing on runway 14. This was not the end of
his adventure though. As the aircraft slowed, the nose tire, which is quite small, caught in a groove in the runway and caused the plane to veer left. The wingtip caught the embankment and caused a slow speed flipover. A great cloud of dust was kicked up, and the rescue vehicles were on scene withn a few minutes. (It seemed like a few minutes, but it was probably just a minute or so). As they were extricating the uninjured Anders, Michael Dacey, in a Nuventure, (I believe an upgraded Questair Venture), declared an emergency and at about
the same time, so did Dave Morss in the incredibly fast #99, factory sponsored Lancair IV. Morss was able to deal with his emergency, but was forced to land. Dacey, on the other hand, had a different sort of problem. He had an indication that his main landing gear was not safe. So he flew around while the rescue crews dealt with Anders, trying to get his gear to cooperate. He flew over us a couple of times and it appeared to me that he had one of his main gear legs hanging from the aircraft. But, he lined up after a pass by the tower for confirmation of what he had and proceeded to an uneventful, yet very tense landing. His gear held up and he rolled to the end of the runway. Whew!| 1st 305.575 #69 |
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Yeah, RIGHT! That's what I thought, but I knew better. There were some airplanes sitting in the ramp area that were just a tad faster. This was a good race though, don't misunderstand me. They would all finish close to or over 400 mph! They had all qualified over 407 mph, (the first time for #47 and #99). These guys were vying for a position in Heat 2A on Friday, with Dago Red, Voodoo, and September Fury, (Dreadnought and Strega by this time were out for the rest of the weekend). As I recall, Critical Mass, Race #10, was moved up to the top five and didn't have to Race on Thursday either. So that set up the race between the next six, by qualifying time/speed. The Race would start with Dan Martin in the "smokin' stocker" Mustang, Race #20 "Ridge Runner III" on the pole, Brent Hisey in Mustang Race #11, the ever popular "Miss America", Howard Pardue in the #66 Sea Fury,
"Fury", Stu Eberhardt flying another Mustang, Race #22, "Merlin's Magic", followed up by John Bagley and Hoot Gibson in their Sea Furies, #47 "Southern Cross", and #99 "Riff Raff", respectively. Oh Baby! These guys were comin' down the chute and lookin' good. Dan Martin was closely followed by Brent Hisey the first three or four laps of the Race. Howard Pardue hung there in third, not quite being able to catch up, (or maybe not trying too hard), with Miss America. The real Racing, was once again, back in the field between #22, #47 and #99, with John Bagley and Hoot Gibson in closely matched Racers, ultimately finishing 8 tenths of a second apart, with Hoot leading the charge. Miss America and Ridge Runner were sounding and running great, no apparent "sandbagging", as is commonly a stategy to save the motors for the serious Racing yet to come. I am not bringing this up as a point of contention or
derision, just stating an opinion of what I have seen over the last twenty years. It is not a bad thing to do, considering that these guys put alot of time and money into these motors and aircraft, and want them to still be around on Sunday. I would do just enough to keep my place in the class I'm in, unless of course I had a realistic chance at bumping up into a higher class, this seemingly being the case with the first three finishers. So, to finish here, John Bagley and Stu Eberhardt were both judged to have cut the "Deadline" and Stu got sanctioned for low flying, resulting in a DQ for the day.| 1st 412.514 #20 |
2nd 398.265 #11 |
3rd 396.198 #66 |
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So, due to all of the photographers out at Pylon 2, and the lack of a large capacity bus, (or the perception that the large bus wouldn't be able to handle the road, which was proven wrong on Sunday), I decided to wait for the last bus back to the pit area. On the way out earlier, we saw Blue Angel #3 in the process of a #1 engine change. 2 hours later, the engine was hung by the chimney with care, (Whoops, different story, HAH!), was installed and running. Those guys are good! We finally got back and I wandered around the pits aimlessly, taking pictures of some of the protagonists that were in or out for the weekend. The sun wasn't quite so bright and was setting at a nice angle for some late afternoon photos. These are just a few that I thought I would place here. Moonbeam McSwine, (above left), Race #51, (Vlado Lenoch Pilot), didn't qualify above the magic 300 number, so it sat in the pits as a static display most of the weekend. Vlado did really well last year, not sure what the problem was this year. Immaculately clean, the bird did look good anyways. Critical Mass, (upper right), Race #10, was a beehive of activity most of the day as the team worked to 
prepare her for the race that everyone was anticipating. That would be Heat 2A on Friday where she could strut her stuff after a year of intense preparation against Dago Red and Voodoo. I love this airplane. The next subject of my scrutiny was Race #232, September Fury. After qualifying at a respectable ****** on her first outing at Reno, and quite a bit of press devoted to her construction, there was alot of attention to be paid to this "new" competitor. Even though the paint scheme hadn't been decided on at this point, (and still hasn't as far as I know), the aircraft was well prepared for Mike Brown and company by the famous Sanders Brothers. After some teething trouble this year, (more on that in the Friday story), I am sure they will be back with a vengeance next year. Can't wait to see the final paint scheme. And then, there was Strega, all buttoned up and looking to the casual observer as if all was well in the world and that she was ready to go. I have already talked about that at the beginning of this day's story, and not much else can be said. NEXT YEAR TIGER! GO STREGA! With that said, the final picture from the pits says alot about the Miss Merced Team and the carnival atmosphere in the pits after the racing is done for the day. These guys know how to have fun, it looks like to me, (and the other 50 people who are standing around in AND out of the picture.
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