Some old Reno pics

[mdwflyer]

Bakersfield was a very big deal for Dwight Thorn. This was his first real shot at the Gold in a decade. My question is: Was this an Allison rod Mouse motor? I've asked this in the past and nobody has seemed sure.

It ran really well, and finished the Gold Race. Stiletto ran equally well, for 6 laps, but apparently ran out of fluids doing so. Birch Matthews says Skip reported seeing 140 inches of manifold pressure during that race -- 110 inches is about what you'd see at Reno altitude with a high rpm Packard rod motor like Stiletto's.

So was Strega's Bakersfield motor a Mouse motor?

Can't speak to the motor, but the difference between Reno & Bakersfield should be about 5 inches manifold pressure.

[wingman]

Would that be a higher possible manifold pressure at Bakersfield altitude? I'm not a pilot, and I get confused. Birch Matthews says Skip reported 140 inches at Bakersfield -- and ran out of fluids in the sixth lap.

These guys were running wingtip to wingtip at over 430 mph for six laps.

[wingman]

This was earlier in that Gold Race. Strega led for the early part of the race, but Skip slipped into the lead when the pair had to pass lapped traffic ( Race 72 just trying to stay out of the way).

It rained that evening...

[mdwflyer]

Would that be a higher possible manifold pressure at Bakersfield altitude? I'm not a pilot, and I get confused. Birch Matthews says Skip reported 140 inches at Bakersfield -- and ran out of fluids in the sixth lap.

These guys were running wingtip to wingtip at over 430 mph for six laps.

It would be higher, a merlin guru would answer why it's that much higher.

[Sparrow]

In the airplane with -9 gears at 3400/3450 it will make 140-150". With -7 gears at 3500/3600 it will make 115+ a bit on a good day with a good intake trunk that is well sealed. There is enough pressure on the intake trunks if they are not beefed up and supported properly they will open up and ram air is lost, or greatly reduced as is the power due to reduction in MAP..
The boats running -9 gears at 4000+ RPM would get around 125". The airplane has the airspeed factor for ram air that increases the MAP accordingly, the Merlins in the boats had the scoops on the carbies facing rearwards so as to not fill up with lake water and had no ram air. Ram air is the difference. Hovey and I ran an engine on the Swamp Buggy with -9 gears at 3400 and WFO which yielded 100", stationary run of course.

[wingman]

Minter Field is listed as 424 feet elevation.

Rare Bear was not the only airplane with issues -- This was Stiletto on Saturday evening.

[Big_Jim]

Minter Field is listed as 424 feet elevation.

Rare Bear was not the only airplane with issues -- This was Stiletto on Saturday evening.

As I recall, this was the beginning of the end (at least the first crack that showed up in public) between the owner and the engine builder. Seems to me the plane sat at Shafter for a long time after the race. It only took another year to completely unravel and what had originally been built/intended as a 'house racer' that couldn't be sold out from underneath...was sold out from underneath. And very publicly, at that, with some hefty, unnecessary shots fired from owner towards engine builder. I always felt that was particularly in poor taste. I also seem to recall that the same owner had guaranteed the prize money for the Bakersfield event (there was question right up to the last minute if the event was even going to take place because of some uncooperative land owners under the race course, and as such not a whole lot of promotion of the event was done and crowds were quite small)...but when it came time to pay out the prize money, said owner reneged. I don't know who all got paid in the end. BCIV probably knows more to that story.

[wingman]

Wiley Sanders was a big part of the story here too, in his usual quiet, behind the scenes way. Wiley was one of the great Racers.

There were 4360s at Bakersfield. Steve Hinton was quietly going fast -- third qualifier and third in the Gold. A couple of months later he'd be setting records at Reno.


Here a very young John Maloney is running up the Super Corsair. The Sanders bunch had still not quite solved the bearing issues with the Dread Sled. They ended up spending the week changing the engine in Dreadnought.

[RAD2LTR]

That is a really cool pic. Thanks for posting and reviving the thread.

Will

[wingman]

Thank you, Will. Sometimes pictures with lots going on can really work.

The Super Corsair was big...

[RAD2LTR]

Anything with an R4360 is going to be large. I do remember seeing the Super Corsair in the late 80s when I was a kid. I'm still bummed it crashed. It would have been cool to see it square off against Dreadnought the past few years had it not gone in.

Will

[supercub]

Who owned the Super Corsair and who was the driving force behind it? Would be interesting to hear from someone the history including the build of the Super Corsair.

[RAD2LTR]

The Super Corsair was the Chino Boys project. I think it predated Dreadnought and was the major reason Dreadnought was built (Perhaps it was the other way around.) It started as an early Corsair that was in storage at Chino that needed a lot of work. They pieced it together, and took it racing.

Will

[wingman]

There was a point in the summer of 1982 when the Fighter Rebuilder crews were between big money projects. The Red Baron was gone, and racing stock Mustangs was not giving Steve what he wanted, so they got to thinking...

There was a stock early Corsair fuselage out in the boneyard. It was far from an airplane -- just a shell with no wings, landing gear, instruments or anything else. These guys didn't have much money, but they had energy and skills, and they had friends. John Sandberg gave them an engine, John Paul had a wing, and so forth. In four months they had a flying racer.

It had issues, and did not fly real good, but they were there.

In the office here is Steve's best friend Jim Maloney. Steve and Jim were very much the principles in this project in the early years.

[SpinB]

Every time i saw the Super Corsair, it made me think of a Rottweiler running with Whippets! It was hard to watch her dive into that GM Test Track! I was never gladder to see that 'chute!