November 2006 Feature Story:
The 2006 Reno Air Races

Story by Gary Williams

The 43rd National Championship Air Races were held September 13-17, 2006 at Reno/Stead Airfield, about ten miles north of Reno, Nevada. This year the racing event was billed as “Conquest in the Sky” and that proved to be an excellent motto for the event.

The Reno races were started in 1964 by some forward-looking aviators and businessmen who, though the races lost money for first few years, could foresee a bright future for the event. They chose to hold the annual races each September, generally a slow month in Reno at the time, so they got some support from casinos and hotels. The annual attendance at the races has grown from around 10,000 in 1964 to well over 200,000 in the last few years.

The whole town of Reno gets excited about the races with sales, parades, bar drinks named for the races, and even schools get involved. The school kids get to go to the races but they must work while there. They travel around the pits in small groups of six to eight accompanied by an adult or two. Each student has a worksheet and must find answers to the questions on the sheet by interviewing race pilots, crewmen, etc. The questions range from “What makes an airplane fly?” to “How can I time a lap and calculate the speed?” Many of the successful race pilots at Reno started by attending the races at Reno as a youngster and decided that they had to work “race pilot” into their future plans.

The weather for this year was mixed. The week started out very warm with light winds but by Friday it had turned cold with very strong wind gusts and hats were often flying. Then Saturday and “Gold-Race Sunday” it changed again with near-perfect air-racing conditions.

There were few surprises this year, and the races were accident-free, but the racing is always exciting and you can never “bank” on any competitor. This year started out on a positive note. Almost all of the top teams were entered so many fans were predicting some super competition. Then the bad news started even before qualifying began. First, the long-awaited Wildfire project announced that they were withdrawing from the races. The project was started in the 1970s then, after one flight, went into storage for sixteen years. In 1999 the effort found new backing and Statler Air was formed to finish the racer and get the exotic creation onto a racecourse. The team came very close but in July they decided that there wasn’t enough time to properly test the engine and airframe. They withdrew from the 2006 races and plan to be in great shape for the races in 2007.

Then Stephen Patterson withdrew his Sea Fury. Steve isn’t a Gold racer but he does a great job at Reno and has become a very popular race pilot. He had planned to race this year but business kept him out of the country during the races. Darryl Greenamyer normally races #33 in the Sport Class, a seemingly unbeatable Lancair Legacy. This year Darryl decided to stand down and let his friend Roger Von Grote have a hand at it. John Parker and the Thunder Mustang people finally decided to go to the races with a supercharged engine but in the days before qualifying word leaked out that they had some trouble with the new powerplant so their performance was in question. Bill “Rhino” Rheinschild was to have three racers this year but, after a four-year restoration, Risky Business wasn’t ready, so he brought his Sea Fury (Bad Attitude) and a P-51 that had raced many times in the 1980s and ‘90s named The Healer.

Biplane Class
The Biplane Class has become very interesting over the last decade. Ten years ago the top speeds fell into the 210-215 mph bracket and this year the top qualifier was Tom Aberle in Phantom at nearly 250 mph! Tom and Jeffrey Lo were racing similar, radical biplanes with futuristic-looking propellers. In the Gold final, Tom got first at nearly 252 mph and Jeffrey was second at nearly 232 mph, both light years ahead of the pack. Stephen Brown came in third at 212 mph. Some of the biplanes are now outperforming many of the Formula Ones.

T-6 Class
This class is so closely matched that winning comes down to how much time and energy was spent on preparing the airframe, and the skills of each race pilot. Reigning champion Mary Dilda decided not to race this year and top competitor Al Goss experienced engine failure at the races so this class was up for grabs. Nick Macy, long-time T6 racer in Six Cat, won the Gold Race at nearly 236 mph, only a couple mph under the record. Dennis Buehn got second at 229 mph and Gene McNeely finished third at 223 mph.

Formula One Class
Gary Hubler has been racing his Mariah for fifteen years and during the 1990s he was quickly catching Jon Sharp in Nemesis. When Sharp retired his racer in 1999, Hubler continued to charge ahead and he gets faster each year. In 2002 Gary won his first Gold Race and has won the gold every year since. This year he won the Gold final at nearly 258 mph, David Hoover was second at 254 mph and Charlie Greer was third at 247 mph.

Jet Class
This is the newest of the racing classes and all entries are the Czechoslovakian L-39 Albatros jet trainers. Since their inaugural race in 2002 they have recorded lap speeds in the 235-255 mph area. This year was different. John Penney, once race pilot of the Rare Bear, won the Gold Race at a whopping 470 mph! That record will probably stand for some time. Rick Vandam was second at 443 mph and Phil Fogg was third at 433 mph.

Sport Class
This class was created in 1998 so an average pilot could get into racing by buying a production civilian aircraft or kit airplane. The class has rules that the competitors need to follow (engine size, no one-off aircraft, etc.), but they are liberal enough to allow some innovation. This is another class that has surprised fans by its increase in speeds each year. In 1998 the winning speed was around 308 mph and this year Jon Sharp won in Nemesis, an aircraft of his own design, at 360 mph. Jon actually crossed the finish line in second but Rod Von Grote, in the Lancair Legacy, cut a pylon on the first lap and with the penalty his speed was reduced to 358 mph. John Parker got third in his Thunder Mustang at 350 mph. Parker had some problems with the new supercharged Falconer engine but seemed to get them solved early in the week because he finished a heat race on Saturday at 370 mph! During the Gold Race Parker’s Blue Thunder threw the belt driving the supercharger and slipped from second to a third place finish.

For 2007 the Reno Air Race Association is considering starting a new division in the Sport Class named Super Sport by easing the rules even further to allow engine sizes up to around 1000 ci. If the idea is carried out it’s certain to cause lots of excitement in the sport racers.

Unlimited Class
This is the class of racing that is the cornerstone of the National Championship Air Races. All of the classes and the air show are important parts of the Reno event, but the Unlimiteds are the big drawing card. No where else in the world can you see 25 or 30 World War II era fighters gather to see who is the fastest. It was once said that a pilot could go to Reno, win everything, and if he blew his engine when he got the checkered flag for winning the Gold Race as he crossed the line, he lost money for the week. It has also been said that most would race for a six-pack. It has to be that way for the sport, at least for the Unlimiteds, to survive.

There was positive news all summer and fans were starting to dream of one of those rare “golden” years at Reno…until about July. Then news started leaking out that Miss America was not going to race this year. No reason given. Wildfire could not be tested and readied in time nor would Jimmy Leeward’s Galloping Ghost make it this year. Stephen Patterson had to withdraw his Sea Fury (Southern Cross) and Matt Jackson’s new racer wouldn’t be ready until 2007.

The bad news continued when race week started. Dan Martin took Dago Red out on the course to qualify and during his run a valve controlling the spray bars stuck, the temps went out of sight, and it burned a piston and ruined one of their race engines. The crew worked all night to install another but when they test ran it the next day they found metal shavings in the oil. Dago Red would not be racing. When questioned that Saturday, Dan said he may try it again with Dago next year and owner Terry Bland agreed. Terry said the racer is up for sale but when it’s sold he wants it sold to someone who will keep it in racing.

Ron Buccarelli took the popular F8F Rare Bear out and he qualified at 456 mph but burned a piston which did enough damage to the engine to take that team out of the races for 2006. Stu Eberhardt has raced his P-51 Merlin’s Magic since 1988 and has been getting faster each year but lately he has been fighting more than his share of bad luck. This year it got even worse. Stu blew #22’s Merlin engine in his first qualifying run. A broken connecting rod tried to cut the engine in half! They quickly installed their “go home” engine and qualified at 364 mph but there must have been a rain cloud over the Eberhardt’s pit this year. On Saturday morning a crewman was recharging the oxygen system that the pilot uses and he over pressurized the system. When it blew it took out both sides of the fuselage behind the wing, the engine radiator and even the tailwheel mechanism. Fortunately the crewman was only slightly injured and recovered within a couple of days. By Monday they had totally disassembled the aircraft and put it on a truck to go home. Voodoo became another victim of bad luck. Bob Button qualified the P-51 at 436 mph and seemed to run strong all week but the crew found metal in the oil on the weekend so Bob had to pass up the final races. By Sunday’s Unlimited Gold Race there was only one super-hot entry to challenge Michael Brown’s Sea Fury, September Fury. Tiger Destefani had to take the last spot in the starting position in Strega because he had to pull out of a heat race (and change his engine) on Saturday. As the only other Merlin-powered racer, Jimmy Leeward took off in his ever-faster P-51 Cloud Dancer for the Gold Race and he almost immediately requested to land. A weld broke on a coolant tank.

Tiger, in Strega, started the race last but worked his way up to second in the first three laps then had to drop out on the last lap with an engine problem. Michael Brown, in September Fury, survived the challenge to take the win at 481.619, the fastest a Sea Fury has ever finished. Matt Jackson, in the very reliable Dreadnought, took second at 453 mph, and Sherman Smoot in Czechmate finished third at 446 mph, the fastest finish for that racer. Fourth was Robert “Hoot” Gibson, the ex-astronaut, in Riff Raff at 437 mph. Next was Stewart Dawson in Spirit of Texas at 429 mph, Nelson Ezell in Fury at 409, and Bill Rheinschild in Bad Attitude at 408. It would have been a clean sweep for radial engines except for the Bronze Race. Robert Odegaard raced his F2G Corsair, that hasn’t raced since 1949, to lead the Bronze until an engine problem forced him to pull out in lap five, and Dave Morss got the win in a P-51A Mustang at 344 mph. Dan Vance captured the Silver Trophy in another of Brown’s Sea Furys, September Pops. His speed was 406 mph.

It was another year of the round motor. Six Sea Furies and one Yak finished the Gold Race while two Mustangs got a DNF. Over the 42-year history of Reno’s Unlimited Championship Races, inline engines have won 22 times and now radial engines have won twenty. What will next year bring?

Reno has it all: wing walking, aerobatics, the Air Force Thunderbirds, other jet aerial displays and fly-bys, comedy, and some air racing that you can only see in Reno. Don’t miss it next September.

2007 Reno Qualifications – Sept. 10-12
2007 Reno Air Races – Sept. 12-16