Interview with Nick Macy
By: Naomi
West
Great! Once again,
I’m lost in the middle of farmland. Whenever
I leave the city, I’m lost – even with
explicit directions. Everywhere I look, there are
cattle, horse, sheep and lama ranches; acres and
acres of potato, beet and hay farms. But the
great thing about an agricultural basin is that
there are always Ag pilots. Whenever there are Ag
pilots, there is bound to be a racer! And
that’s what I’m looking for today.
My first clue came
just south of the California border, when we
finally came across a windsock near a big open
field. The second clue was quite obvious, under a
classic weathervane, a sign that reads:
"Macy’s Flying Service". I knew we
finally had reached our destination.
Climbing out of
the car and looking around, it seemed ominously
quiet but then again, it was the end of October
and most of the crops were done for the year. As
we came around the side of the building, there
was a row of hangers filled with private
airplanes and 4 or 5 Ag planes parked in a row on
the ramp, but no AT-6 racer!
We asked the first
person we saw as to where our subject was and she
lead us right to his office. Inside, standing
tall, a quiet man with a firm handshake, a
beaming smile and a curious sparkle in his eyes.
Here was the two-time Reno National Championship
AT-6 Class winner...
...Mr. Nick Macy,
of Race #6, "Six-Cat"
The son of a B-24
instructor in WWII, Macy grew up in Tulelake,
California, flying Ag planes with his father from
the tender age of 10 or 12. Nick first soloed
when he was just16 years old and has gone on to
accumulate many thousands of hours flying spray
planes for his family’s business.
Moving to Air
Racing from the thrills that Agricultural spray
operations can offer doesn’t seem too much
of a stretch but we wondered how he got hooked on
racing?
Macy told us of an
interesting twist in his flying career that
explained it all. "I got my pilot's license
when I was 18. I went the University of Nevada in
Reno, so I did all my flying affiliated with the
college there. The flight school was in same
hanger as Lear – Bill Lear and his operation
– he actually had the flying school and
contracted it out… and had a contract with
the university... So I was always at Reno, I
would always go to out to the Air Races and I was
there all the time, so that’s how that kind
of got started"
Nick’s
introduction to Air Racing was much earlier
however. "My Dad actually took me out to the
Air Races when I was like 10 or 12 years old and
I fell in love with it. I always wanted to do
that."
As we mentioned at
the beginning of this story, the Klamath Valley,
(Nick’s home town of Tulelake, CA, is at the
southern end of this valley) is a rich
agricultural area. Those of you familiar with Air
Racing history, undoubtedly remember the Late Bob
Yancy, who was also an Ag pilot, doing his flying
out of nearby, Klamath Falls, Oregon.
"Yancy
actually got me going." Thinking of his old
friend brought a smile to Nick’s face as he
continued, "Bob kept saying ‘come on,
come on – let’s go, let’s go to
Reno!’... Everybody was so excited when we
got down there and Bob’s Corsair was such a
crowd pleaser. And [later] when Bob sold the
Corsair and had his Yak"
At this point in
his aviation career, Macy had a stock T-6,
painted bright yellow. Finally, bitten by the bug
to go racing, he took the airplane to Reno and
gave it a try.
"I went down
in 1986 and basically, what we did was [just]
slapped a number 6 on the airplane… I just
went down to see if I could pilot it through
qualifications basically was what that year was.
I made it through the qualification period and
from there it’s been an adventure…
It’s been a real adventure for me."
We wanted to know
more about the 1986 "Six-Cat."
Nick’s beautiful, black T-6 that won the
last two years at Reno is certainly not your
basic "stock" T-6! We asked Nick if
"Six-Cat" was the same airplane
he’d begun with.
"Yes, same
plane." Adding, "we brought the
airplane back and started tearing it down...
repainted it." Smiling again, Macy
elaborated on the evolution of his racer,
"it was basically a real bright yellow and
white. We painted it black… 87 was the first
year it was black and we took fourth in the
Silver... and then we just kept working on the
airplane."
Nick has obviously
come a long way from that first year racing at
Reno, as our conversation with this two time
winner continued, Macy talked about what it feels
like to get to the top. "When I first
started, I just thought ‘geesh, if I could
just stay in the Bronze or Silver... you know,
that’s probably where I’ll end up
at… and then we started getting up towards
the Gold race, I never thought we’d get that
far.."
Nick’s climb
to the top has not been an overnight success
story. His record at Reno shows a 13 year effort
before his first win, Macy explained to us that
it’s all about constant improvement.
"Each year, everybody is in they’re own
realm, working on their airplane. And then you
get left behind if you don’t try to improve
what you are doing. If you think you’re
really fast and everybody starts catching up with
you, you have to continue to try and improve
yourself."
Honing the
airplanes year after year becomes increasingly
difficult, as Macy explains, "We’re at
the point now with our airplane that we
can’t afford too much more on the engine, so
now its back to the aerodynamics and back to the
finer points; of making sure the weight balance
is correct, and we’re down to really small
items but it all adds up in this
class…"
AT-6 racing is the
most restricted class in the National
Championships. All airplanes must be stock and
some modifications can result in
disqualification. This is a class that really
tests a pilot’s skills and the finesse of
the crew, not the size of the engine. The rules
for AT-6 racing make for some of the closest
competition seen at Reno, yet this class has some
of the closest camaraderie of any group racing
there.
Macy confirms this
with his comments:
"I get down
there early and I’m talking to Bob Jones (
Race #8, "Crossings Aviation") this
year and it’s his 20th year, and
we all showed up on the same day…and ya
know, he didn’t have to come and neither did
I and he’s like, 'What are you doin here?'
– and I said "what are you doin here?'
– and he says 'I can’t not
come,' and I said, 'I came down here to enjoy the
whole week,' so we go to the briefing every
morning and start getting into a routine…
...like it’s
a habit, you wait a whole year for it to come and
you don’t want to miss any part of it."
Macy also told us
about all the children running around at Reno. He
has two boys and a daughter all under the age of
10 that love to fly with Dad in his airplane. His
wife also accompanies and encourages him to Reno
for the races. "It’s like a big family
get together with all the kids (from the crews)
running around in the pits"
I had to ask
whether he would be encouraging when his sons or
daughter came to him in 8-10 years, saying that
they wanted to be a Racer, like Dad? Macy
responded, "Well yes, I’d help them at
anything they wanted to do."
When we asked
about the crew for "Six-Cat", he told
us, "…with the air application
business, we have A&P’s here….
[and] the guy that originally started, Bob Stern,
our crew chief… We have the rest of the crew
we take out of Tule and then we have another crew
down in Reno that we all combine together. Those
are the guys I went to school with down there in
Reno; we kind of mesh them all together.."
Sounded like quite
the party to us!
No question, Reno
is fun for crews and pilots alike but it is also
hours and hours of hard work, Macy acknowledged
the contribution by the crews in getting the
airplanes race ready at Reno, saying, "You
watch the AT-6 guys working on the airplanes, I
cross the lines and they are all working on those
airplanes at the end of the day. You really have
to hand it to them for how much work they do and
how much they get out of it. There’s a lot
of work involved."
That inspired us
to ask if "Six-Cat" had a new engine
this year (for R2K) and surprisingly, Macy told
us, "No, the engine we had on there has been
on there for – this will be the fourth year.
It had an overhaul – two overhauls –
and we then had a problem with the cylinders and
we re-honed three of the cylinders this year
– Larry Klassen came down and did a
mini-overhaul."
Imagine winning
the AT-6 Gold race two years in a row with the
same (overworked) engine but Macy calmly assured
us, "yeah, but we take a real hard look at
it every year…when we get it back, the first
thing we do when we get it back from Reno is to
do a complete check; compression check all the
cylinders; look for oil; make sure there’s
no metal and things like that. If we deem
necessary we’ll take it off. But Larry
Klassen is actually our engine guy – from
about 1997 on – and what he says pretty much
goes."
Nick continued,
explaining the important relationship between the
race pilot and his crew. Stressing his very high
regard for his engine man, Larry Klassen, Macy
related an incident where a problem with the
airplane was causing him concern.. "We had
some oil [problems] and we pretty much had it
narrowed down -
He (Klassen) said,
‘we got a pretty nice runway here and you
can handle the airplane, so concentrate on
racing, and don’t worry about it.’ When
you’ve got someone like Larry telling you
that, it makes you calmer and makes you a little
more confident in what you’re doing."
>>CONTINUE>>
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