Sunday dawned cloudless in Roswell, setting a blue-skies mood for a full day of figuring out who brought the fastest planes to the National Championship Air Races.
In blessedly cooler air—at least until the sun established its usual dominance for the afternoon—the biplane racers got things started with a snoozer Silver contest. Jeff Lo and gang ran in qualifying order while Juan Brown did a masterful job on the PA system, handing out all sorts of information as the parade put in their laps. Lo dutifully put Miss Dianne in first.
Next up, the Formula 1 Silver group put on a fine show. This was after Saturday’s mix-up; we reported it as mainly pilot error when all but last place pulled off a lap early, but it turns out they had plenty of help from race control. The white flag was essentially shown twice and associated radio calls didn’t help, so we can all stop snickering about the pilots.
From the drop of the green, Trent Woodworth in Feisty and Chet Harris in Snot Naught/Pistachio had a 202-mph discussion about first place, with Chet never relinquishing the lead, although it was close all the way. The other good contest was Houston Pye hanging on to fifth over sparring partner Mark McIntyre. Flying a disciplined, tight, and low line, Pye easily held the much wider-flying Canadian Mark McIntyre at bay to move up a spot from where he’d been all week.
In the Biplane Gold, Tom Marden ran away and hid in Second Hand for the win, followed by Mike Smith in a lonely second. But it was Tommy Suell and Andrew McVicker repeating Saturday’s oh-so-tight duel for third that made a race out of it. Suell showed great race craft, flying low and tight for the first laps, then going high in the turns when the ever-so-slightly faster McVicker nearly got past. Suell won the duel.
Next up was a simple two-ship T-6 drag race using a standing start and one lap of the course. Frank McGilley flying Big Red took the win over Greg McNeely in Undecided.
In the much anticipated Formula 1 Gold logic prevailed, but that’s not to say it wasn’t fun to watch. Justin Phillipson got his patented lightning start, excitingly low to the first pylon. Josh Watson in Fraed Naught was as close as his slower-starting but ultimately faster plane would allow, and it was clearly only a matter of time before he’d work his way around Phillipson. But it wasn’t easy; Phillipson ran low and tight while his lead allowed, then higher and wider to force Watson outside. There was jockeying and hints of doubt, but when Phillipson got truly high, Watson dived under and first place was his.
Eric Dienst in Deja Vu had third all to himself, so attention shifted to the battle of the slab wings, meaning the weeklong duel between Drew Keenan in Sleeper and Carl Robinson in Heatstroke. They ran in lockstep, however, each pilot precise and not giving or losing a foot, with Keenan taking the fast slab wing title in fourth. Andy Mack covered the rear of the pack, absolutely owning sixth.
STOL Drags put on their usual crowd-pleasing, sideways, and dirt-blowing show. There was plenty of racing, of course, along with some obvious self-imposed handicapping. Trying hard, “Rookie” Ronnie Saner hung on to his snappy Badlands Traveler while veteran Rod Hewitt did the same in his similarly Yamaha-powered RANS S7, Angry Kitten.
Regular STOL Drags ace Hal Stockman did well in his now 4.1 version of Vaquero. Sticking with Rotax power, Stockman had to pretty much build a new airplane for this year when a turbo oil feed line came loose on version 4.0, leading to an in-flight fire. Luckily he could land nearly anywhere near his Elko, Nevada, base and was able to get himself and his gear out before the fire consumed all but the tail group.
Just after colors, the Unlimited Silver took wing. We thought Steven Coutches was going to lead this thin field of P-51s, but after a couple of laps Steve Hinton thought differently and moved into a comfy lead to the finish. If we had an H-model P-51, we wouldn’t push it all that hard, either.
Winning the Sport Silver took every lap, with Bijan Maleki leading Dee Child at the start, but Child motored past somewhere in the hinterlands, confusing the announcer yet again as both pilots were mounted in blue Glasair IIIs. Despite a big effort, Child had the power to just hold Maleki to second. Third all by himself was Jason Rovey in an entirely too fast RV-8, but behind him Scott Prewitt (Team Rocket F1) and Kent Edmunds in a TB-30 ran closely, with Doug Rybczynski a beat behind but lending visual interest in Joe Coraggio’s spacey Long-EZ. Studiously guarding the back door a plus distance back was Steve Senegal.
Next up were the T-6s. Miss TNT with Lee Oman on the stick made it look easy with a runaway win. The action was for third and fourth, where Vic McMann just held off Greg McNeely to garner third and fourth, respectively. But there was an even tighter fight for fifth and sixth, where Gordo Sanders in Big Red stalked Virgil Tatman into a photo finish still being called at press time.
The win was TNT’s first ever at Roswell (the class didn’t run here last year) and its eighth overall Gold triumph.
Few races are more anticipated than a Sport Gold, and while there was no passing in the entire Roswell event, it was still exciting and full of anticipation for those in the know. Unfortunately, Peter Balmer had to sit this one out as his broken exhaust system yesterday turned into a broken turbocharger today. But this left Tom McNerney no reason not to turn up the wick at the start and walk away from a nitrous-assisted Joe Coraggio, naturally aspirated Conrad Huffstutler (Breathless), and gang.
In reality, McNerney needed only 60 inches or so of manifold pressure for the cruise-to-win. That’s a bunch for normal airplanes, but McNerney’s gorgeously crafted Too Much is designed for far more and actually needed a bit of leaning to keep the cylinder head temperatures from chilling. His was a well-deserved first Sport Gold win after years of building and development, often under trying circumstances.
With McNerney out front and low to give the pylon judges some fun, the rest of the field strung out in qualifying order: Coraggio making his nitrous last to the end to keep Huffstutler from challenging, followed by James Webb, Kevin Eldridge, Colleen Sterling, and Blake Hewitt.
After a noisy break watching the USAF Thunderbirds, it was time for Jets. There the hot ticket is an L-29 with upgraded engines, and there were two of them at Roswell: Athena flown by Bob McCormack and ArcAngel with Jason Googe on the stick. Googe did the deed for sure, lapping the stock L-29s right at the home pylon on his last lap for a convincing win. McCormack brought Athena in second and “Jive” aka Jerry Kerby took third in an L-39. David Sterling and Joe Swindle, both of San Diego, came next; Kevin Roll was sixth.
Then came the Unlimiteds, which was the expected Steve Hinton and Bardahl flag-to-flag runaway at an average speed of 432 mph. Miss America ran well somewhat back to take Dr. Hisey to second after its rudder derangement yesterday; he was followed by the close pair of round motors in Argonaut flown by Stephen Koehler and Bernie Vasquez in a Yak, Miss Trinidad. Vicky Benzing came up to play at mid-race, getting her P-51 Plum Crazy in front of Vasquez for most of the penultimate lap, but Vasquez was ahead in a close, crowd-clapping finish. Brant Seghetti was sixth in the P-51 Blondie.
Full results: https://reports.airrace.org
Nicely done, Tom. Thanks!
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Nice reporting on the NM air race. I hope to make it in person next year.
Good write up. Thanks.