Some old Reno pics

[wingman]

A long time ago Stead during the Races was more like a temporary village than the crowded urban conglomeration it became in later years. There were mostly just airplanes.
Bucky Dawson and I would go up into the stands Thursday of Race week to drink a beer or smoke a joint and just experience the spectacle of all those wonderful machines spread out before us.

Maybe this can be a quiz question -- name the year. Also -- one of the visible and recognizable airplanes here failed to fly home on Monday. If you can identify this airplane you will know the year...

Neal

[RAD2LTR]

A magical moment in time.

Will

[Fawkes]

Well Neal, unlike others who could likely just look at the photo and tell us a multitude of facts, I had to do a bit of sleuthing around the internet to come up with a semi-educated guess and even then, it was only based off you teaser. So, at the risk of being completely wrong but to show my gratitude for a prompt to dig a little deeper in Reno history, I will say...

1975. If correct, I got there off the tailfeathers on the SNJ at the bottom of the pic. If incorrect, I still appreciate the trip down memory lane!

James

[Shawn Aro]

1978 I was a 11-year-old kid. I was only there on Sunday

[wingman]

1978 I was a 11-year-old kid. I was only there on Sunday

Well done Shawn! I would not have been surprised if nobody got this one, as it was so long ago and so few aircraft markings are really visible. James's 1975 was a good guess, but was obviously a guess, while Shawn is quite certain. What made you pick 1978, Shawn? My clue would have been the ultra rare P-51H barely visible in the upper middle of my photo.

[Shawn Aro]

i saw a Sea Fury two place and it wasn't 924. The other won had invasion strips, so it was Wasa Hooker I also notice the Chino Corsair but i didn't know who didn't fly home had to think about that and it was the P-51 H me and my mom were at the hotel that day it happen

[wingman]

i saw a Sea Fury two place and it wasn't 924. The other won had invasion strips, so it was Wasa Hooker I also notice the Chino Corsair but i didn't know who didn't fly home had to think about that and it was the P-51 H me and my mom were at the hotel that day it happen

Well reasoned! That is a good shot of Bill Harrison's Sea Fury -- better than any I got, I think. Taken from Pylon 1, too -- I talked about that place in the other thread.

1978 was an interesting year for variety, though I remember the weather as really and truly crappy. I think that was the year a bunch of us walked back to the pits from Pylon 2 in snow flurries because the pylon transportation people forgot us. It was pretty unique to have a Corsair, two P-38s, the world's only Bell P-63F, and one of two P-51Hs all in one heat race. The only P-51D was Hoover...

Neal

[SpinB]

Well reasoned! That is a good shot of Bill Harrison's Sea Fury -- better than any I got, I think. Taken from Pylon 1, too -- I talked about that place in the other thread.

1978 was an interesting year for variety, though I remember the weather as really and truly crappy. I think that was the year a bunch of us walked back to the pits from Pylon 2 in snow flurries because the pylon transportation people forgot us. It was pretty unique to have a Corsair, two P-38s, the world's only Bell P-63F, and one of two P-51Hs all in one heat race. The only P-51D was Hoover...

Neal

It would be, quite literally, IMPOSSIBLE to replicate this starting grid! This is the reason Reno lit a raging fire in me and why it is devastating to me, personally, it will never be like this again....
<heavysigh> Thanks for posting this kind of gold, Neal!

[wingman]

It would be, quite literally, IMPOSSIBLE to replicate this starting grid! This is the reason Reno lit a raging fire in me and why it is devastating to me, personally, it will never be like this again....
<heavysigh> Thanks for posting this kind of gold, Neal!

OK, got that.

So how does the Red Baron leading Precious Metal down the home straight in the Championship Race in 1978 make you feel??

[Bigger Al]

OK, got that.

So how does the Red Baron leading Precious Metal down the home straight in the Championship Race in 1978 make you feel??

It makes me feel 13 again.

[Jan]

It was windy on Sunday... Ray Cote dressed as a clown in keeping with the sponsorship he had from Circus-Circus on "Shoestring"... Crocker would have made things more interesting if he hadn't blown "Sumthin' Else's" engine in practice before qualifying... Sadly Dmitri Prian and Don DeWalt were lost in a T-6 midair.... Bill Whittington ground-looped the P-51H just after the start of the Consolation race - had prop issues, attempted to land downwind on 26, couldn't get it stopped, went into the overrun and whipped it around... Wind, cold and yes, snow flurries Sunday ended up canceling the F1 Consolation and Championship races.... Steve Hinton and Don Whittington had a good battle with several passes in the championship race... Steve prevailed w/an average of 415 mph and helped make the Red Baron/Darryl Greenamyer drama that had been simmering a thing of the past... And after Thursday of race week beers with Bucky in the grandstands Neal took another photo during the Medallion race on Sunday similar to the one above that's in the 1978 chapter of "Gentlemen, You Have a Race".

That's not quite "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey would say but it's something...

[wingman]

The Red Baron and Precious Metal were much more closely matched than most folks remember. This photo is from 6 months later, at Miami. I sure wish it was sharper. I got PM pretty sharp, but not Steve. Not much depth of field with a long lens and with manual focus you can only guess. On line like this it still looks pretty good.

Precious Metal was one of the great racers of the time...

[wingman]

Another from Miami -- again not quite sharp but makes a point.

[Jan]

I like both photos Neal. Perhaps I'm just used to non-digital photography. They're not pin-sharp but they look fine to me and each tells a story - just as they're supposed to.

Pop-quiz (of sorts...) What's interesting about the RB-51 and Don Whittington?

[wingman]

[QUOTE=Jan;n264644I

Pop-quiz (of sorts...) What's interesting about the RB-51 and Don Whittington?[/QUOTE]

I cannot think of a single thing, other than occasionally sharing some airspace. Are we talking about Dandy Don himself, or about Precious Metal?

Actually I can think of lots of interesting things about them, but none that they have in common...