Reno 1997

The Rookie Year

In 1997, for further museum exposure, Bill entered Val-Halla in the Reno Air Races for the first time as race #68 (year of Apollo 8 flight).  At first Bill's goal was simply to get out, get his feet wet by racing in the Bronze races all weekend.  For this goal, the only modification from stock we did was to add a spray bar to the radiator intake and three red, five gallon plastic fuel jugs full of water behind the seat.  This gives you only a few laps worth of the additional cooling necessary while closing the radiator door to reduce the drag to be a little more competitive.  This really helps you place well in the two qualifying laps but doesn't last long in the races.  After Friday's race, the thrill of few fast laps and the frustration of the rest of the laps only being in the 280kt range got to "rookie" Bill and he directed the mechanics to turn the left fuel tank into a water tank so we could on-load enough water for the whole race.  On Saturday Val-Halla ran beautifully and the weather was perfect.  During this race, Bill had his best closed course lap speed at 380MPH, finishing well enough to move into the Silver race on Sunday. 

Sunday rolled around and the weather was proving to be a factor in the race.  A fairly good wind was rolling off the Sierras down on Stead.  The Silver race got in the air and the front moved through.  Visibility went down due to blowing dust and the race course was hammered  by strong winds which in the mountains means bad turbulence.  Bill's experience in the Air Force flying all weather fighters and low altitude bombing proved to be a decisive edge this race day.  On this most challenging race Sunday, the "rookie" finished third in the Silver races with an average race speed of 369MPH, beating out some more modified, and technically faster, airplanes.  But even sweeter, the "rookie" beat these airplanes being flown by some folks who earlier had not spared the point that they were experienced Reno racers, and he was just a rookie.

After two more years of racing, the '97 Silver race, third place finish is still the sweetest victory, because it was a race whose finish reflected more on the pilots than strictly on the modifications made to the airframes.