RENO (Sept. 17) – Air Races came to the skies above the Stead Airport this week. For all concerned it was a challenging week and for some a throw down to see just who was the best in their class. As usual the Unlimited Gold race brings the week long meet to an end and this year the defending champion aircraft was flying in its final race for the current owner Bob Button. Playing spoiler was another champion racer owned by a many time champion Bill “Tiger” Destefani. Before the gold race began there was some excitement as the motor

RENO (Sept. 17) – Racing recap has results from two tracks that ended their season. The main Air Race article will either be out Monday or Tuesday evening. This year’s National Championship Air Races ended on a high note with one of the two close races ending the week. There is a new Unlimited Gold Champion but the race went down to the final two laps. In the end defending champion Steven Hinton made a slight miscalculation but at almost 500 miles an hour it cost him the race. Chasing Hinton was Jay Consalvi, who took advantage of the error

STEAD AIRPORT – Air Race Update has the five fastest qualifiers for this edition of this event. Due to a memory card failure the article was held up a day but now here it is. Fastest of all Jay Consalvi, flying the Unlimited Strega, a championship winning P-51. It took him two attempts and the one Tuesday afternoon was a bit exciting due to a rapidly approaching thunderstorm. “Tuesday we ran into a little bit of thunderstorms, I’ve got some cool pictures of lightning outside the canopy,” he said. “I was more concerned about my guys on top of the

STEAD AIRPORT (Sept. 12) – Air Race recap today is focused on the Unlimiteds qualifying as well as the other classes. The day it self began with pretty nice weather but that all changed during the afternoon. However between noon and 1 p.m. many of the Unlimiteds qualified. Of course one plane of interest was the modified P-51 Voodoo and now is the fastest piston powered, propeller driven plane in the world. Record setting pilot Steve Hinton strapped in and threw down the fastest lap so far. He posted a time of 59:409 seconds around the 8.0851 mile course or

STEAD AIRPORT (Sept. 11) – Air Race, day one, well things were a bit quiet although some were busy qualifying their racing aircraft for the battles to come. Sitting on the ramp testing its engine was Voodoo, now the fastest piston powered, propeller driven aircraft on the planet. Although it didn’t break the record set by Rare Bear it did the fastest pass in its attempt. To set a new record the aircraft has to do four passes along a course and be at least 1% faster than the previous record holder. They almost did it but not quite still