Unlimited stats/records questions

[ZacYates]

Hi all,
We are very fortunate to have the RARA results site which gives reports for, I believe, every Unlimited NCAR event from 1964 on. There is a lot of data there and before diving in and consuming all my spare time I was wondering if anyone here could kindly answer a couple of stats/record questions for me?

Just out of interest and for fun I've been compiling my own list of Unlimited Gold winners and wanted to do some additional research to answer some other questions (please let me know if anything's incorrect):
Most wins (aircraft): Strega #7 N71FT - 11 wins
Most wins (pilot): Darryl Greenamyer and Bill "Tiger" Destefani - 7 wins each
Fastest qualifier: 2011 Steven "Stevo" Hinton Jr in Strega #7 N71FT - 499.160mph
Fastest race speed: 2009 Steven "Stevo" Hinton Jr in Strega #7 N71FT - 491.822mph

But can anyone tell me the following?
Fastest lap speed
Fastest lap time
Fastest winning Gold race time

Any other similar trivia for Gold would be much appreciated.

Do I take on Silver and Bronze too? Only my amount of spare time will tell...

[Big_Jim]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

Hi all,
We are very fortunate to have the RARA results site which gives reports for, I believe, every Unlimited NCAR event from 1964 on. There is a lot of data there and before diving in and consuming all my spare time I was wondering if anyone here could kindly answer a couple of stats/record questions for me?

Just out of interest and for fun I've been compiling my own list of Unlimited Gold winners and wanted to do some additional research to answer some other questions (please let me know if anything's incorrect):
Most wins (aircraft): Strega #7 N71FT - 11 wins
Most wins (pilot): Darryl Greenamyer and Bill "Tiger" Destefani - 7 wins each
Fastest qualifier: 2011 Steven "Stevo" Hinton Jr in Strega #7 N71FT - 499.160mph
Fastest race speed: 2009 Steven "Stevo" Hinton Jr in Strega #7 N71FT - 491.822mph

But can anyone tell me the following?
Fastest lap speed
Fastest lap time
Fastest winning Gold race time

Any other similar trivia for Gold would be much appreciated.

Do I take on Silver and Bronze too? Only my amount of spare time will tell...

Don't do a dis-service to yourself. If you only limit it to the NCAR you're short-changing the story of some really good pilots. Strega also won races at Bakersfield in '85, Denver in '90 and '92, and Kansas City in 1993. Rare Bear (under other names) won at Cape May in 1971, Miami and Mojave in 1973, Hamilton in '88 and Phoenix in '94 and '95. Dreadnought won at Tunica in 2005. Dago Red won at Las Vegas in '89. The Red Baron won at Mojave in '74, '76, '78 and '79, as well as Miami in '79. Skip Holm added a win at Moose Jaw in '84 to his NCAR total. Steve Hinton added to his Red Baron and Super Corsair wins at NCAR with a win at Dallas '90 in Tsunami.

[RiffRaffRay]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

I believe Skip Holm in Dago Red averaged 507mph in a Friday heat race. 2003
Riffraffray

[wingman]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

Your problem even for Reno will be lack of data. To start with, Reno's timing has always been a major issue. Several trained NAG officials used to keep splits and lap times for their own pleasure and often found gross errors in Reno's figures. There have also been major changes over the years in course layout and timing methods and how they measure course distance. This greatly complicates year to year or even aircraft to aircraft comparisons. RARA has never kept splits or lap times for individual airplanes. There are always stopwatches going on the ground, but with no standardisation of method or viewing point the results are useless for comparison. So when you see figures floating around about Tsunami in 1991, for instance, you need to take all with a large chunk of salt.

Pete Law has for years kept one of the better data sets. It might be interesting to contact him about some of this. The other people I knew that compiled this sort of data are long deceased -- Jack and Sylvia Sweeney for instance. I'm sure their data is long gone, unless some of it was saved in whatever remains of the NAG archives at this point.

Your quest will be interesting, but frustrating...

Neal

[ZacYates]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

I believe Skip Holm in Dago Red averaged 507mph in a Friday heat race. 2003
Riffraffray

Turns out the RARA site has that! The document for Heat 2A says 507.105mph - "#4 Unlimited Class race record".

Don't do a dis-service to yourself. If you only limit it to the NCAR you're short-changing the story of some really good pilots.

That's something I hadn't really thought about, purely because the research (again, just for me) is about Reno and the NCAR. This largely because my own knowledge and interest has been shaped by info on Reno (and, to a much lesser event, the Phoenix 500) being more available in NZ, and the fact RARA has the database online. I definitely didn't intend to shortchange any of the pilots or airframes - your post is the first time I've heard of some of these events! I'm very interested to learn about all the various races held across the US. Knowing where to start is the tough bit!

Pete Law has for years kept one of the better data sets. It might be interesting to contact him about some of this. The other people I knew that compiled this sort of data are long deceased -- Jack and Sylvia Sweeney for instance. I'm sure their data is long gone, unless some of it was saved in whatever remains of the NAG archives at this point.

Your quest will be interesting, but frustrating...

Neal

I'm glad I'm doing this in an ever-expanding digital age where it seems most info is only a mouse click or three away! I'm very intrigued to learn what Pete may have.

[Big_Jim]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

your post is the first time I've heard of some of these events! I'm very interested to learn about all the various races held across the US. Knowing where to start is the tough bit!

Gary Williams has a fantastic set of Unlimited class racing results from 1946-Present in three volumes. I don't know if Gary is on here, but well worth the stats inside. Has both pylon and cross country races, plus qualifying, heat results, etc.

[airace]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

Thanks for the kind words. I spent nearly thirty years putting together all the Unlimited results (worldwide). I learned a lot assembling the data.

[RichH]

Re: Unlimited stats/records questions

Fastest qualifier: 2011 Steven "Stevo" Hinton Jr in Strega #7 N71FT - 499.160mph

Yeah, as Neal mentioned... the way they calculate speed vs distance has varied over time.

As an example, with a 2% adjustment prior to 2003 (course length was changed WITHOUT actually changing the distance), Strega only has the 4th fastest qualifying time:

1. Dago Red 507.743 (Skip Holm, 2002)
2. Rare Bear 501.091 (John Penney, 1996)
3. Dago Red 500.643 (David Price, 1996)
4. Strega 499.160 (Steve Hinton Jr, 2011)