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by
Bruce Skaggs On July 23 Paul Cox and I left Bowman Field, Louisville, KY for Dare County Airport, Roanoke Island, North Carolina. We were to participate in the Airventure 2000 Air Race. The race was to cover 1000 miles in two days with a layover stop at Dayton, OH. As we left Bowman Field for our nonstop flight, little did we know that this 3 hour IFR was a preview of things to come. We were at 9000 ft, cruising at 203 MPH, using 8 gallons per hour at 57% power. Not bad for a fully loaded Mustang II. Upon arrival at Dare County Airport, a race crew full of enthusiasm greeted us! They had put together quite a race. It was all to begin with a flying start at First Flight Airport, a mid-point stop at Dayton, OH with a tour of the Wright Brothers Bike Shop and Museum, and after a flying restart at Dayton, a flying finish at Oshkosh. What a deal! At Dare County there was free food, free gas, lots of goodies, and the race hadn’t even started. There were 31 airplanes in the race and we were in the biggest class with 13 airplanes. As we toured the competition we observed some rather interesting work being done on several planes. New plugs for the Polen Special and two pilots repairing their wood props with fiberglass and resin since they had gone through rain to get to the start of the race. We hitched a ride to our motel to change for dinner. The name of the place was "THE DUKE OF DARE". You know these motels, full at 9 pm, almost empty by 1 am. After checking in we all went to the First Flight Museum and Monument. What a fantastic, moving experience. We had a great time with Bruce Bohannon of Pushy Galore fame, a real neat guy. There was a rumor floating around that we would get free gas for the race and get into Oshkosh free, all this and it turned out to be true! After another free meal, we went to the briefing. Not all 31 planes were in yet due to the bad weather and the forecast for the next day didn’t look too good with low ceilings, rain, and fog. Not good for a VFR only air race. The first and second place planes in our class from last year were there, a Glasair with 180 HP and an RV-8 with 200 HP. Monday, July 24, dawned with lousy weather. The Weather Channel called for 100% chance of rain all day, not good! We checked out anyway and caught the van to the airport where breakfast was served. We then spent the next 4 hours staring at the Weather Channel and telling lies because there was no break in the weather. We were told that all planes must be tied down because the winds were forecast to pick up. That, after all was why Wilbur and Orville were here. By this time all the "old farts" had run out of lies and fell asleep in front of the Weather Channel. After much discussion, the race committee decided that the first leg could not be run as our time window was soon to pass and it was still not VFR all the way to Dayton. Finally, at about 1:30 p.m., the decision was made to scratch the first leg and turn everyone loose to get to Dayton on their own. Dayton was on the backside of the weather system so the race could be started from there the next day. I was sure glad that Paul & I are both instrument rated and so is his Mustang II. 2.5 hours of our 3 hour flight to Dayton was solid IFR. When we arrived we couldn’t find the airport because the GPS took us about 2 miles off course. We never did figure that out but if we had been racing we would have really lost out. We arrived at 7:48 pm and only 12 planes had made it by then. We went to supper with an RV-8 driver who told us he had a hopped up IO-360 in his plane and he cruised at 195 knots. We kept our cool since Paul’s plane has almost 1700 hours on it and we were fully loaded. [the 1st place Glasair had 340 hours on it and this 2nd place highly modified RV-8 only had 80 hours] Most of the other racers were also flying solo and some even shipped their baggage! Tuesday the weather was beautiful. We left the Quality Inn in a van driven by the owner. What a hoot! Our lives were in more danger on this ride to the airport than the entire IFR flight of 6 hours in the last 2 days. Only six planes made it in our class; 2 Glasairs, 2 RV8’s and an RV6A. We again got free gas.At the start we were seeded 6th out of 6. I guess we got no respect since they start the fastest first and we were last in our class. What we didn’t know was two more planes in our class got to Dayton that morning and ran the race so it turned out there were 8 in our class. This portion of the race had 3 legs and we passed the RV6A on the first leg. So much for no respect! We flew the race at 2000 ft, wide open. We knew we were doing pretty well because as the planes in front of us called out their checkpoints we could see we were catching up. Paul flew an unbelievable race staying on course all the way to the end when we buzzed the amphibian landing area at Oshkosh, which was the finish line. We then landed on 27, which had a 15 kt crosswind. Some of the racers wouldn’t land on 27 and went for 18, but Paul in his usual way, put on a real greaser. After the race we went to dinner with the group, again free, where Bob Hoover and Tom Poberezny were the speakers. What a treat. The winners were announced, and much to our surprise, we got third behind the RV8 with the souped up 200 and a really slick Glasair I TD. We were only a couple of minutes behind the RV8 so it was close between second and third. We were privileged to have the Mustang Aeronautics crew, Chris, Walt and Tom with Paul and me at the dinner. The next night we were featured at the Theater in the Woods where we were all introduced to the entire crowd. What a great experience, a first class race committee, a great race, and a great finish for 80PC. One of the contestants, Jack Watson, summed it up best when he told the audience at the theater that in his 30,000 hours of flying, nothing matched this event. We agree! Thanks to Mustang Aeronautics and especially Chris for all the support. Paul and I hope to do some speed mods and enter 80PC in 2001. |
