Saturday
Update Sheet
Note:
All race statistics, as posted in the official
race results,
printed at day's end by the Reno Air Race
Association.
All Classes: Sorry
for the late update, we spent the entire
day out at the pylons taking pictures for
upcoming Reno 2000 Galleries. Here's a
brief run down of what happened today.
T-6 Class:
Heat 2A proved to be a great race between
Race 6, Six Cat, piloted by Nick Macy and
Race 90 piloted by Gene McNeely. Macy
barely took the win with a speed of
220.456, which was 0.147 miles or .27
seconds faster than McNeely. Jim Good, of
Race 77, Wyoming Wildcatter, will be
going to the Gold on Sunday by taking
Third place in this race.
With the new 'Frostbite' engine installed
in Lickety Split Race 9, we hoped to see
some serious action from Bud Granley. We
think they still have some 'engine
tweaking' to do before tomorrow's Silver
Race.
T-6 Class:
In the Bronze race, John Zayac in Race 12
Thumper, called a Mayday when he had a
'prop seal' go out on him. John landed
the plane safely and the crew has
repaired the damage. The team says that
"...it's good enough to fly home,
but not to race". In late afternoon,
we saw Race 12 on the ramp doing run-ups
and even take off on a test flight.
Sport Class:
The Cinderella story continues with Lou
Meyer and Thunder Mustang Race 69. This
was Lou's third race in this plane (or
any plane for that matter) and his third
win. We'll be watching Lou closely for
that "four for four" win!!
Even though we saw Dave Morss in the
outside lane, in his Race 99 Lancair IV,
he was the first to make the turn on
Pylon 2 but then Dave called a Mayday due
to external shaking of the plane. When
Dave pulled up off the course and out of
the race, the shaking stopped. After he
landed, the crew found that a "gap
seal in the aileron" had come apart
and that had caused the problem. The
plane has been fixed and will race
tomorrow. We are hoping NOT to see
a "four for four" Mayday, with
Morss.
Unlimited Class:
Another beautiful run by Skip Holm in
Dago Red, Race 4, took the win, followed
by Matt Jackson in Voodoo, Race 5. The
Dago team reports that the past few races
have been around 450mph, and that
"..Dago still has a lot of room to
play"
So what do the heat race battles from the
past week tell us about what we'll see
tomorrow....
Attrition has been a large part of the
story this week, with some of the
favorites in all three racing groups
going down.. Strega - Dreadnought - Czech
Mate - all potential gold winners.. out
of competition..
Riff Raff - September Fury - down...
Moonbeam McSwine, though not out of
service, last year's Bronze class winner,
failed to meet the 300mph minimum
Unlimited speed during qualifying....
So where does this leave us for the top
slots tomorrow....?
Let's just take a look at the Gold class
before we shut down the HQ here at Stead
and call it a night (it's been a very
long day)
Dago Red.. Flown by Skip Holm, running
very strong.. the obvious favorite....
Voodoo.. Matt Jackson at the controls...
the obvious second contender?
Critical Mass.. Tom Dwelle at the helm...
Strong airplane, good crew.. Tom has not
had what anyone could call a great week
but... Remember the sand truck that
pulled into the Dwelle pit last year? We
sure do! Could Critical Mass be the
"Stealth" Racer?
There you have the three favorites for
tomorrow in our opinion... and NOT
necessarily in the order printed here....
Stay tuned!
Click here for
final qualification results
Sunday
Pairings
Unlimited | T-6 | Sport | Formula
1
| Biplane
|
