The highly modified W.W.II vintage P-51, was damaged during a landing mishap after the final race on Sept 14. The team still plans to disassemble the race winner and return it to it's California base by truck for repairs, total damage assessment will take place at that time. "Strega" crew chief, Bill Kerchenfaut, filled in a few of the blanks on what is known of the damage to this point.

Along with the obviously ruined prop, the nose case on the engine is cracked, there are several holes in the radiator, caused by debris thrown up when the prop struck the runway......the right landing gear is damaged, as we mentioned in our last update, but the left gear strut is showing signs of damage as well. Worse news, there may actually be some damage to the airframe beyond the landing gear problems. The horizontal and vertical stabilizers are showing signs of being slightly off true, which may indicate quite a bit of torque transmission down the entire fuselage from the prop strike.

Kerchenfaut tells us: there is no way to really tell how bad anything is without actually going in and looking. The extent of disassembly needed to do the needed repairs may well become quite extensive. The 5-6 month repair time, mentioned in our last update is, a "best-case" estimate, there is no guarantee that "Team Strega" will be ready in time for the '98 Reno event. FlightLine will keep you informed of any further developments.

Our thanks to Bill Kerchenfaut for taking time to talk with us, and our best wishes to "Team Strega". -Wayne Sagar-

visit the Team Strega website
http://www.strega.com

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