NemesisNXT Working Toward
Debut
At The 40th
Annual National Championship Air Races
 With "Reno 2003"
just around the corner, Air Race fans
from around he world are beginning to
chomp at the proverbial bit for snippets
of information on the
"who-what-when" front for the
annual meeting of the fastest of the fast
of motorsport.
One of the
most exciting potential entries into
competition this year would be the much
anticipated debut of Jon and Trish
Sharp’s new Sport Division airplane
"NemesisNXT."
Described
on their website as "a two
place, retractable gear, single engine,
kit airplane of all molded carbon fiber
construction allowing a very sleek
aerodynamic profile. Powered by a world
class Lycoming TI0-540-NXT engine and a
Hartzell Three Blade Propeller,
NemesisNXT will be a high performance,
breathtakingly fast race plane available
in kit form."
With the
past history Nemesis Air Racing in mind,
one would expect that the emphasis placed
on "breathtakingly fast" might
well be "somewhat" understated.
The NXT was recently described (as it
sits, nearly completed) by one of
Jon’s former IF1 competitors, Ray
Cote, as looking as though it is going
400MPH "and it’s not even
moving!"
Many of
you reading this are aware of that
aforementioned history. Jon Sharp and the
Nemesis Air Race team completely
dominated the International Formula One
Racing Division from the first time they
raced "Nemesis" in 1991, until
the airplane was retired after winning
their last race in 1999. The list of
achievements by the team is actually too
long for the scope of this article but a
brief synopsis includes: 47 victories out
of 50 starts; 9 consecutive Reno National
Gold Championships; 3 Bler̀ot Medals; 4
Pulitzer Aviation Trophies and 16 world
speed records.. A very impressive record,
indeed.
But
regarding the successor to
"Nemesis" the question on the
lips of race fans this year is simply:
"When do we get to see the
NXT!?"
 Building a completely new
design air racer for Reno, or any other
Air Race, could only be described as a
monumental task. Add to this, the rules
for the National Championship Air Racing
Sport Class Division for kit-built
airplanes that NXT will be raced in, that
there be a total of five kits sold before
any new design can be raced, and you have
an extremely challenging task.
In a
conversation via telephone on the evening
of July 25, 2003, Jon Sharp informed us
that the quest to debut the airplane at
Oshkosh AirVenture 2003 had to be
abandoned, but that the airplane, barring
any major set-backs, would debut at Reno.
"We’re
finishing up and delivering up the parts
for the fifth kit, we have always not
just been building one airplane,
we’ve been building five,"
Sharp said. With time running so short,
we asked Jon if the airplane would be
raced at Reno or simply be on display,
his answer, "if we’re at Reno,
we’ll race", indicated that
they fully intend to be there as
competitors, not vendors!
According
to Jon, the NXT is now "a whole
airplane" adding, "we’ve
got a bunch of people working on it, and
our sponsors, Lycoming, Skunk Works, Red
Line Oil, Aircraft Spruce, Fiber Cote,
Hartzell, and the others… all of
them, have really been jumping through
the hoops for us, they have all just been
an immense help to the program."
The
NemesisNXT sponsors have, indeed, gone to
great lengths with the new project from
this very progressive team, Jon informed
us that Lycoming has even created an
engine with a specific dash number for
the NXT series, the
"TI0-540-NXT" has been designed
specifically for the NXT application by
the engine maker.
But will
they actually be able to make Reno this
year? We put this question to Jon and his
reply was cautiously optimistic: "we
expect first flight, sometime in August,
if we’re able to fly the hours and
work out all the bugs by Reno, we will be
there" adding "if we make it to
Reno, we expect to be competitive."
Jon and
Trish Sharp form one of aviation’s
unique couples. Sharing the duties of
building not only a new airplane, but the
new company formed around it, their
dedication to this project can only be
described as intense. Both members of the
couple can almost  always be found at
their Mojave, California manufacturing
facility, hands-on, making parts,
contacting suppliers, keeping the books,
from the smallest to the largest
detail… a supremely challenging
project for a married couple. Throughout,
they remain a closely knit team and best
of friends.
On a
personal note, our calls to NemesisNXT
are usually answered by Trish Sharp, who
fields most of the calls to the team. On
this evening’s call, the phone was
answered by her husband Jon. Trish was
involved in a fairly serious automobile
accident earlier on the day of writing
this story, an accident witnessed by Jon
who was driving about 100 feet behind
her. The airbag in the vehicle Trish was
driving deployed and Trish and the other
motorist were not seriously harmed. Jon
indicated that after a few days of what
will likely be a painful recuperation, he
expected Trish would be back at work.
"She’s pretty beat up, but no
bones are broken, we expect she will be
hurting for a while but she will be
OK."
The Sharps
anticipate a very busy air show schedule
once the airplane is complete, The
Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas Air Show is on their
initial schedule and would likely be the
debut of the airplane if the quest to be
ready for competition at Reno can not be
met.
Trish and
Jon, everyone in the sport of Air Racing
are pulling for you! Jon thanked us and
all of the fans of his race team for
their support tonight while we were
speaking with him, my reply to Jon, I
think, would speak for all Air Race fans,
the "thanks" goes to Jon and
Trish and all the people involved with
this project. They are what makes this
sport happen, without people like them,
there would be no Air Racing!
Team
Nemesis, We’ll see you in September!
|
