Precious Metal in her new paint for the 50th Reno Air Races (photo: facebook)
Qualifying at the 50th anniversary Reno Air Races begins today, and fortunately for Thom Richard (and his Precious Metal P-51) he arrived from Florida just in time yesterday to be eligible to race. The combination of his race engine failing in a recent ground run, the time needed to build up a useable last-minute replacement engine, and weather that wasn't safe to make the journey from Florida all ran the clock right down to the wire!
But he's there now and joining Steven Hinton who this year is flying the P-51 Voodoo, Matt Jackson in the P-51 Strega, Stewart Dawson in the F8 Bearcat Rare Bear and Hoot Gibson in the Sea Fury 232 to round out the flashy side of the Unlimited Warbird Racing Class. The full UWRC line-up for Reno 2013 can be seen at this link, and as always with racing, you never know who will come out on top! And of course there are the Formula One, Biplanes, Sport, T-6 and Jet classes as well... it's gonna be a huge week! Actual racing begins on Wednesday and then runs thru Sunday.
I'm leaving Indiana Wednesday morning to drive all the way out to Reno and hope to arrive Thursday afternoon. It's a 33 hour drive plus fuel stops and a 5-hour sleep. I push hard and hope to arrive 38 hours after I depart! Once there I'll be fetching up some great pix to share with you, but you can also experience the races via the LiveAirShowTV internet broadcast that runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Click here for the live boroadcast, or check out LiveAirShowTV.com for more info. You can also get details later in the week on the LiveAirShowTV facebook page.
Precious Metal now with filled-and-profiled wings and many other mods (photo: facebook)
Low. Fast. Left. Reno!