Rolls-Royce: A Sponsor’s Story AAFO.COM takes a closer look at what Rolls-Royce’s involvement with Air Racing means to the company, the Reno National Championship Air Races, and this — the World's Fastest Motorsport.

By: Wayne Sagar
and Mark S. Daniels

For those of us who follow the World’s Fastest Motorsport, it's not often that we get to look closely at the companies who support Air Racing and how their experience with the Reno National Championship Air Races transpires. In 2001, we had the chance to take a good look at one such company: Rolls-Royce.

To many, the name "Rolls-Royce" conjures up the image of the classic luxury automobiles that have borne the legendary name over the years. In today’s reality, however, Rolls-Royce "the car" is no longer produced within the family of Rolls-Royce products. The "Automotive connection" to Aviation’s V-12 piston engine is now purely historic.

To many others, "Rolls-Royce" stands for the equally classic and visionary, World War II-era, Merlin and Griffon V-12 engines that powered the Allied Air Forces to victory in World War II and ultimately kept the world safe in the post-war decade that followed.

And yet, there is so much more than this to the Rolls-Royce story.

In the post-WWII period, Rolls-Royce Merlins were a prominent force in Thompson Trophy Air Racing that occurred at such venues as Cleveland, with a V-12 Merlin taking the Thompson Trophy home for its owner in 1948.

More so, for the past three and a half decades, Rolls-Royce Merlin and Griffon engines have become a dominant force in Reno-style, Unlimited Class Air Racing, where speeds on the "nine-mile" oval are now approaching or exceeding 500 mph...

...Roughly a hundred miles per hour past the intent of the original Rolls-Royce designs.

Since the first Reno National Championship Air Race in 1964, Rolls-Royce engines have won outright, forty-two of sixty-nine Air Racing events, including eight Transcontinental Distance races, and twenty National Championships, with three of the latter going to the Griffon-powered RB-51 "Red Baron," during the "threepeat" years of 1977, '78 and '79.

This is not surprising to many as Rolls-Royce's involvement in Air Racing can be traced back to the Schneider Trophy Races of the late 1920s, and in particular, the final, 1931 Schneider event, which was held on the Solent River, at Calshot, near Southampton, England.

There, on September 13, 1931, a Supermarine S.6B floatplane, powered by a Rolls-Royce "R" V-12 motor, and piloted by RAF Flight-Lieutenant J.N. Boothman, won that racing event at a speed of 340.08 mph, claiming the Schneider Trophy for the United Kingdom. Following the race, on September 29, 1931, the S.6B went on to set a blistering speed record of 407.5 mph (Author's note: a stock P-51 averages 400 mph at best during a closed course Air Race — and remember, the S.6B was a floatplane!) — 60.42 mph faster than its winning speed in the Schneider...

...An awesome performance by man and machine for the time — only the third decade of flight.

The S.6B of Air Racing antiquity is likewise linked via the fighters and bombers of WWII, to Air Racing in the modern day. As any Aviation historian will tell you, the S.6B is the predecessor to the Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane and the S.6B's "R" engine is likewise considered the predecessor to the Rolls-Royce Merlin, which powered tens of thousands of Spitfires, North American P-51 Mustangs and Avro Lancaster bombers during the war.

The Merlin was also utilized in the licensed, post-war production of the DC-4 in Canada — an airliner known as the Canadair Northstar.

Similarly, the Merlin is considered the predecessor to the Griffon, which also powered the Spitfire late in the war and later — in the post-war period — the Avro Shackleton anti-submarine patrol bomber. Prior to the end of the war, the Griffon had been selected to power the air superiority fighter of the day, the Martin Baker MB.5, before that project was cancelled by WWII's end.

Now, the Merlin and Griffon are utilized by the Warbird Community in their historic aircraft restorations, and by competitors in both Speedboat and Air Racing.

The Rolls-Royce R.B.211 has powered second and third generation giants like the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar and the Boeing 747, 757 and 767 series. Likewise, today's Rolls-Royce Trent series are currently among the powerplant of choice for the enormous, fourth generation twin-jet Boeing 777, and the Airbus A330 and 340 jetliners. Shortly, a new derivative of the Trent will power the double-decker Airbus A380 into the skies and beyond this into "tomorrow," Rolls-Royce will likely be the engine of choice for the proposed Boeing Sonic Cruiser.

Though the production lines at Rolls-Royce might seem preoccupied with these lucrative, billion-dollar business efforts, it would seem that neither the Corporate leader, nor the factory worker, have forgotten their roots with either the Merlin or the Griffon. History dictates that it is the Merlin and Griffon that Rolls-Royce will long be remembered for.

The Rolls-Royce connection to Aviation and Air Racing, both historic and modern, has now entered it's ninth decade of commitment in terms of "depth" as it applies to these two engines alone (Author's note: the history of Rolls-Royce dates back to 1906, and can be traced back to the founding of F.H. Royce & Company, in 1884 — 117 years of products and services to people around the world...).

After all, these are the same motors that have won a World War and in the peacetime that followed, helped preserve that peace. Now their usefulness yet to be outlived, they continue the legacy by powering a multitude of racing aircraft to victories in the World's Fastest Motorsport.

Rolls-Royce’s commitment to the excellence of machinery that Air Racing exemplifies continues today. For the past several years — Rolls-Royce has once again been a notable corporate presence at the Reno Air Races, with their "VIP Chalet" nestled proudly adjacent to the Miss America pit.

This is no corporate "gamble." Rolls-Royce's return to Air Racing is a calculated move, especially since the purpose of such a corporate chalet tent at any racing event might well escape the casual observer. This is because the need for such a chalet goes far beyond "simply" giving those lucky enough to be inside a good seat to watch the races from.

Beyond being a "Public Relations" asset, the chalet is a "Sales & Marketing" tool that a company like Rolls-Royce will use to entertain and interface with their clients. It is also a way for Rolls-Royce to introduce other potentially powerful corporate sponsors to the sport.

Ken Perich, Marketing Vice President for Rolls-Royce explained to us how they became involved with Air Racing and how their presence at Reno has evolved to what we see today:

"As you probably know," said Perich, "our involvement at Reno began with Risky Business and Miss America. Initially we just had a small presence there, working with the teams in whatever space was available for us. We were working with Brent Hisey and Bill Rheinschild when Bob [Avery] (Authors note: Bob Avery is marketing director for Miss America Air Racing and founder of World Of Wings) and I talked about increasing our involvement. This is when we got the tent and put it beside the Miss America pit."

As most of you visiting this site are probably aware, we at AAFO.COM have been working with World Of Wings over the last year and a half, to help further their goals in promoting Air Racing as the next mainstream, nationally recognized, motorsport.

The mission of the WOW group is to help fill the gap in marketing exposure for the sport of Air Racing and air shows, where Aviation expositions record some of the largest fan attendance numbers of any outdoor sporting events — yet the sponsorship levels lag far behind those of Auto Racing, Football, Golf, Beach Volleyball, and — perhaps — even Lawnmower Racing.

How effective has the World Of Wings group been in their approach to changing this longstanding imbalance of sponsor dollars versus "butts in seats" ratio? And just what do these marketing dollars mean to those spending them? We put these questions to Ken Perich:

"Bob was actually influential in getting us involved with Air Racing," said Perich, who added "I'll put my business hat on and say that this is the best way to get the return for the dollars spent." Perich went further by saying that "Without going into exact numbers, we can host a given number of our clients at an event like Reno for a far lower figure than in any other type of event, particularly any other motorsport event. We believe this is a good way to not only say thank you to our customers, it is also a way to expose them to this extremely exciting event. It is also our way of saying thanks to the racing teams who work so hard all year to make this sport possible."

This year was tragically different at Reno. After being put on hold by the FAA's restrictions after the terrible acts of September 11th, the Reno event was eventually cancelled. As it was, many vendors and sponsors could not make it to Reno and in most cases, those who did packed up and left after Friday's announcement by the Reno Air Race Association that the event would not be held.

The Rolls-Royce team made a lasting impression on us with their commitment to the event and its participants. They not only stayed on, they continued with their schedule, despite the fact that they could have saved a large portion of the money not yet spent, they held fast with the race teams stranded at Reno by the National flying ban.

Ken Perich commented on the decision to stay: "The events of the 11th were very hard on all of us — they were hard on us as a nation — and as a company deeply involved with commercial aviation, they were hard on us at Rolls-Royce." According to Perich, "The outcome at Reno was particularly hard on the racers who worked so hard all year to get there. We wanted to make it a way to say thanks to the teams, for all the time and money they put into it so we can have this sport as fans."

The Rolls-Royce commitment to the race teams and the sport were not only visible at the airfield, much effort went into the hosting of a special event held in downtown Reno for the teams. The event was intended as an evening of social contact between the race teams and several of the "VIP" guests of Rolls-Royce who were scheduled to attend.

As it turned out, very few of those guests were able to get to the City of Reno, primarily due to the grounding of both the airlines and general aviation, and the disruption the September 11th attacks created. However, the event went on as planned, and ultimately was a smashing success.

Once again, World Of Wings had a hand in making it happen.

Said Perich, "We asked Bob Avery and World Of Wings to handle the whole show for the Friday dinner. Avery arranged for our speaker, Hoot Gibson and the MC Gordon Bowman Jones. His [Avery's] people made the wonderful video presentation that we showed, which we've now given out to all those who were not able to attend. We've now used that video as sort of a way to keep the air race interest going until next year."

AAFO.COM was invited to the Rolls-Royce event on Friday, and though Hoot Gibson was unable to attend, fellow Astronaut Curt Brown ably filled his shoes. Brown carried the evening with the most captivating description of what it is like to be involved with the United States Space Program that we have ever heard.

Capping the evening off, World Of Wings had arranged for Pat Hunt of Victory Simulations to demonstrate the newly released Xtreme Air Racing flight simulation. Pilots and crews both, were given a chance to try their hand at a "Virtual Reno" event, and from the reaction of the pilots to the game, we would have to say that it looks like a rousing success story in the making!

Keeping a sport such as Air Racing alive and growing into the next century is going to take a lot of effort by a lot of people. The men and women of the teams do their part by working long hard hours — in most cases — for no monetary gain.

Commitment by sponsors such as Rolls-Royce and organizations like World Of Wings working to support this sport is an essential part of the equation.

As fans of and photojournalists within this great motorsport, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who make Air Racing happen. From the volunteers at the Reno Air Race Association, to the race teams who bring the excitement level upwards to the extreme, to the sponsors, the fans and everyone else in-between.

Without all of you, there would simply be no Air Racing.

...And though the terrorist attacks of September 11th may have stopped Air Racing in this year, the excitement of the World's Fastest Motorsport will return in the next, because air racers, their sponsors, event organizers and the fans, keep wanting more.

to learn more about Rolls-Royce visit http://www.rolls-royce.com