Highs and Lows have marked one racer’s year. And now he’s ready to race at the NCAR.

Thom Richard is having a very different and unexpected NCAR experience. But his Florida resident is still having fun in Reno.

Thom Richard sits on the wing of his F-1 airplane prior to racing beginning this week.

“This the first time I’m fielding two different race classes at the same time, that’s a bit of a chore to begin with,” he said. “And both airplanes were top contenders so that’s a lot of work. Top line aircraft are very labor intensive as you know.”

But before he came to Reno there was a matter of competing in two overseas Formula 1 races promoted by AirRace1. The first race was in Tunisia while the second was in Spain.

Both events were firsts for their locations. However this required the Formula 1 aircraft to be disassembled then put in a container and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.

When asked how that effort went, Richard said, “Very well we managed to win both those races. The world’s first African pylon air race and we’re not at the top of the standings as we won both race of the very first World Cup in pylon air racing. And it was a historic event.”

Of course with a new event there is the matter of how it was received, something that was a positive experience.

“It was fantastic, such great hosts over there, we had a wonderful time and the crowds were really excited,” he said. I thin the press coverage exceeds that what we get here in the U.S. It was very fascinating to see how excited they were about it.”

After qualifying for iF1 Richard was fourth but said he’s wasn’t worried as his plane has a new motor and he know there will be more power coming.

“We’re going to work out way up and we’ll be fighting Endeavor soon,” he said.

The second aircraft he had planed to bring was the P-51 Precious Metal. However that trip was over soon after it started.

“It was at a fuel stop, filled up, cranked up as I was going to taxi across the airport to put it in a hanger because the weather coming in,” he said. “I was 50 feet out of the chocks, the airplane was running fine and a gentleman ran up on the left side and told me to shut down which I did. By the time I got everything shut down and jumped out of the cockpit the flames were coming over the left leading edge into the cockpit so it was a pretty exciting couple of seconds.”

He added they have no idea the extent of damage and won’t know until they take the aircraft apart. That will happen in the next few weeks.

“We’ll take our crew up there, yank the engine and propeller so we can start looking and start cleaning things up. Then we’ll have the various P-51 frame experts come in and give us their advice and we’ll take it from there,” he said.

Part of the effort to repair Precious Metal is to sell as much merchandise as possible during the NCAR.

He also has arranged for financial help from the public to fund what repairs need to be done.

Those wishing T-shirts and other things can go by Richard’s pit area. All proceeds go to help repair Precious Metsl.

“We have a “Go Fund Me,” and we’ve had some extremely generous donations from various fans and even anonymous fans, for example we got at $10,00 donation yesterday from someone that wishes to remain anonymous. Just a wonderful thing to see grass roots support of Precious Metal is bar none. Being basically the people’s racer and now we’re going to have our little campaign to put our fans on the airplane and race it around the course the next time we’re together,” he said.

He explained that fans have been pressuring him to do this for some time but he didn’t feel it was appropriate until now.

“It appears it was a good idea as it’s going to help us tremendously. We are insured, the airplane was insured but we have an incredible high deductable of course,” he said. “And there are going to be many other expenses to get the airplane back, not the sure damage to the machine, which we really can’t cover as we have no budget.”

He added that it’s an all volunteer, small budget and sponsored team. And Richard is the only entrant that flies an Unlimited racer across the country so it can compete in Reno.

“People ask me all the time, ‘do you fly on the race motor or the ferry motor,’ and I tell them ‘you should always fly with the race motor as anything else would be unsportsmanlike,'” he said.

He expressed appreciation for RARA letting the team have a pit area even though there is no airplane. This allows the team to sell hits, visors, caps, t-shirts and other things to their fans.

One part of the effort to fund any repairs is where a fan can donate money and can have a small picture of them selves put on the plane. That’s how Richard will take them around the course.

Those attending the air races are encouraged to drop by their merchandise area or they can also go to, www.gofundme.com/dg4s583w. Any and all donations will be appreciated.

Richard is still high from his overseas victories in Formula 1 but hopes to rejoin the Unlimited field next year after Precious Metal is repaired. So far it’s been a varied and interesting year and he hopes to meet the challenges and over come them.

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