By: Wayne Sagar
June 20, 2001

THE "OFF-SEASON"

I hate to use an old cliché but in this case, the old cowboys and Indians saying—"I don’t like it, it’s too quiet out there"—might be an apt way to describe the "Countdown To Reno 2001." Without a doubt, it is quiet out there. Those of you who follow this sport know that we’ve called Reno 2000 "The Year Of The Bent Wrench," and why.

It was a tough year for a number of teams at the last annual gathering of the fastest-of-the-fast. After the carnage caused either by breakage or complete breakdown, several competitors were left with airplanes hangared at the Reno-Stead Airport for months.

We’ve done our best to bring you the news of the airplanes leaving their nests at Stead recently, so let’s start to bring you up to date on some of the racers who had problems, but were in the "breakage" rather than the "breakdown" category—those who managed to get home and take with them the additional knowledge gained by their tribulations.

Last month, while on our trip south to the Doolittle Raiders Reunion, we stopped by the home of Critical Mass Air Racing for a look at what this very progressive team is up to. In that regard, if we were to say "not much," it might be accurate, but it would also be deceptive. Tom, Peggy, Ken and T.J. Dwelle, Chris Farinha, Jim Flanagan, Art "Tin Man" Ermshar and the rest of the Critical Mass Air Race Team have, indeed, been very busy!

BLACK FRIDAY…

…a day that several teams would like to forget. The Critical Mass team certainly had their share of bad luck on that mechanically-costly day last year. A very close call would be even more descriptive!

Immediately after engine start for Friday’s Gold Heat Race, Assistant Crew Chief Chris Farinha, doing what he normally does at that critical point in the race -watching his airplane like a hawk- saw something that just did not look quite right.

"I was looking under the airplane," said Farinha, "and the light just caught a glint of liquid in the air under the airplane."

Chris told of what first caught his attention: "I thought to myself ‘what’s Tom doing running the spraybars now?’ I ducked under the airplane to see what it was and when I touched the skin on the belly. Immediately, I had gas all the way up to my armpit!"

Chris went on to explain what had gone wrong: "The one inch fuel line at the carburetor failed at the fitting… Not coming off, but [causing] a massive leak. The prop wash kept it off the ground, running back on the belly…. As soon as I touched the skin, it broke the surface tension and that’s when I got the gas all the way up my arm."

There is no question that the fast action by Chris averted disaster by catching this leak on the ground, while the leaking fuel was not yet near an ignition source, as he explained to us, "Once CM was airborne, the only place for that fuel to go was out past the exhaust headers, mixing 165 octane with 2100 degree exhaust. The headers where hot enough at the time [on the ground] but all of the cooling air will not exit by the headers until airborne...."

The potential disaster overcome, the team still had a major problem: the field had started and was moving out for take-off—there was not enough time to repair the damaged fuel line. Critical Mass would not race this Heat and would, at best, be relegated to the last starting position for Sunday’s Gold Unlimited finals.

First, they had to win the Silver Heat on Saturday to even get that far.

With the fuel line repaired, Tom and his crew did manage the win in Saturday’s Heat 3B, with Tom’s 423.800 MPH edging out Bill Reinschild in Risky Business, who posted a 421.251 MPH for second place. By winning, Tom had earned the last starting position in the Gold Finals, however, the Critical Mass crew had not pushed their engine yet—a fact that would cause yet another problem to be revealed in Sunday’s finals.

Sitting on a bench in the Critical Mass Air Race Team hangar at Auburn, California, lay the reason for Sunday’s problems:

…the now, very clean and rebuilt ADI tank from the highly modified Sea Fury.

Knowing that keeping the cylinder head temps down was critical on their newly rebuilt Wright R-3350 powerplant, Tom and crew had installed their new, Dave Cornell designed, "secret-tweedle valve," to regulate the ADI flow. Testing had proven the valve had a far greater range than merely setting the flow based on jet sizing. What the team had not known was that the venting system on the ADI tank—formerly a fuel tank on the stock Sea Fury—was not adequate to allow sufficient ADI flow for the power settings they would need to run on Sunday.

SUNDAY GOLD FINALS

A very fast racer winding up in the last starting position for a race, behind several slower airplanes, creates a very hard job for the pilot. Once he had carefully picked his way through the traffic ahead of him, Dwelle was able to get back on his game plan and unleash the beast they had been so carefully nurturing for nearly two years. From the ground, all looked well and Tom appeared to be moving ahead handily. However, in the cockpit, it was a different story.

"We had a really bad starting position, and well—you saw it—we were just in the middle of a lot of airplanes," Tom said of the start, adding that "the ADI pressure gage was bouncing all over the place and I couldn’t keep the temps down."

Tom had seen Matt Jackson—ahead of him in Bob Button’s Voodoo—jump the start "big time" and at first it appeared he would be able to move ahead and push toward the front, it was not to be.

His rising temps left him no choice, other than lower his power settings. He would hold onto third place and hope the two Mustangs battling it out ahead of him would "melt down," allowing him to advance. Though Jackson knew he might be heavily penalized for his "jumped start" he kept the pressure on Skip Holm in Dago Red, running in first… neither slowed one iota. When Jackson was, indeed, penalized 16 seconds for the jumped start, Tom would settle for a very respectable second place finish at Reno 2000.

Looking Ahead to Reno 2001

Knowing this team is never idle in their quest for speed, and the great leaps they have made with the airplane over the last two years—a result of their new engine and cowl, aero mods and all the "secret stuff" they don’t talk about—we wondered just what they might be up to during this "off-season."

We caught the Critical Mass guys during a slow work week, due to the upcoming Mother’s Day holiday, but the fact that a lot had been going on before our arrival was clearly evident. For one thing, the aforementioned ADI tank was cleaned, refinished and re-plumbed, ready for installation. For another, they would not be chasing fuel hose problems this year. A complete rebuild of the fuel system was underway.

Chris Farinha showed us the cause of last year’s problem. The old fuel lines, though on the surface looking completely serviceable, were dried out and very prone to cracking. All the lines were to be replaced and this job was underway during our time there.

What else is on tap? As any of the pilots in the faster Unlimiteds will tell you, it is a handful just flying the course. Add to this, the workload of having to monitor the gauges at 400+ miles an hour, and you have one very busy pilot…

…not to mention, the anxious crew on the ground, left to wonder what is going on with their airplane.

There is one way to solve this issue: Telemetry!

As of our visit last month, the team had a system on order and fully expected to have it in hand, with ample time for installation and testing prior to Reno.

One of the things that is very helpful for a race team is actually getting the airplane home after Sunday’s last race. Reno 1999 was a bad year for the Critical Mass Air Race Team. If you remember, the airplane was unflyable until about this same time last year—and worse—it was stuck at Reno.

This time around, they have had the airplane in their hanger for the entire period of time, with much of the work they needed to do for their run at the Gold already completed. Now, they’ve had the time to "fine tune" the hybrid Super Sea Fury racer. Rather than major improvements on the airplane, what you will "see" this year, for the most part, are the things that you will not see…

…it’s all "under the hood."

As always, there will be some "secret stuff" (there always is) and that is a major portion of what makes being at Reno for the entire week so much fun…

…those things the teams have done that they are not going to talk about, at least until they are forced to show their hand in competition…

Another key advantage for this team is logistical. Beyond having most of their major work already in the bag, they are mere minutes from the Reno-Stead Airport. Just a quick hop "over the rocks" and they are there, ready to race.

The team plans on having the airplane at Reno this weekend for the Pylon Racing School, allowing some very valuable shakedown time on the course.

There is no question that Reno 2001 is shaping up to be a very interesting year.

Critical Mass is a solid contender and due to the situation that developed for the team last year, we have yet to see a completely healthy Critical Mass at full power on the course.

That this airplane is the fastest Sea Fury out there is a given but it has had such radical modifications over the years, that it can hardly be called a Sea Fury anymore.

Rather, this airplane is a highly-modified, "hybrid special," as close as we’ve seen to a "ground-up build" in years…

…and there is yet another airplane out there that masquerades as a "type"—one that is actually a very nearly "from the ground-up" build…

We’ve covered this "other" airplane quite a bit in the past and will do so once again soon…. Stay Tuned!

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