REFLECTOR: Racing

[Rich Guerra]

>Rich,
>I haven't seen you in here in a while. There was some interest in a 
>post last week about racing in a Velocity. I said you did the 
>Oshkosh race and you may know more about what class a Velocity is 
>put in ( unlimited??) and what other airplanes are in that class.
>


Hi Jack,

I'm always here lurking!  :-)

The AirVenture Cup Race was a fantastic experience and a total blast! 
I was the only Velocity in it this year (John Cargill raced last 
year)  but there where a whole slew of canards and some other REALLY 
nice planes ranging from a Turbine Lancair to a Kitfox.  I flew in 
the SPORT class because my engine was too big for the Formula class 
but that puts me against the Lancairs.  Luckily, most of them went 
into the formula class!  :-)  THe unlimited class was for 
turbocharged planes.

The Race started at Dayton, OH and launched from there to 
Sterling-Whiteside airport (SQI) in Illinois for the first pylon turn 
(low pass over the runway) then to Rockford (RFD) for another 
checkpoint then the finish line at  a little private strip called 
Lomira just south of Fond Du Lac (another low pass).  The course was 
about 500 miles long. The racers then climbed out and circled back to 
land at FLD as per usual procedures.  Then (and this was REALLY cool) 
all the racers lined up at Fond Du Lac and we staged a mass arrival 
at Oshkosh!  The airport was closed just for our arrival and we 
arrived just after a Galaxy C5 transport had landed so we all 
attracted a lot of attention too.  The racers were parked as a group 
just in front of the Aeroshell Square!  Could not have asked for 
better parking - we were virtually a show center!  Another nice perk 
was a week's pass to the show for the race crew.  The people were 
just great and everyone is supportive, especially of newcomers.

The race can be flown as a simple cross-country without any fancy 
stuff.  There was a common race frequency which was used to pass info 
up and down the line and for position reports.  THis made for a sense 
of comfort because if any had any trouble, we all would know it and 
there were chase planes with tool and mechanics in trail.  It was 
also amusing to hear people trying to convince each other that they 
were at extremely high altitudes with ridiculous airspeeds.  It was 
also a bit of a rush heading to the finish line with Race 25 slowly 
gaining on me.  We crossed the line almost one on top of another 
within seconds.  How cool!

I ran the race at low altitude and flat out - a very strange feeling. 
I was 200 knot indicated the whole way with ground speeds 
unfortunately held down by a brisk headwind.  I can't say I've often 
made full power low passes either!  THe controllers at Rockford were 
almost as excited as we were as plane after plane roared past.  As I 
put the nose down on final, I couldn't help but laugh as I listened 
to the tower controller urging a student pilot to expedite her 
takeoff because "I've got an experimental on short final at 185 
knots" She sounded confused but had turned out well before my arrival.

I could go on, but why don't I just SHOW you instead?  I just posted 
a whole slew of pics on my website with a few sections dedicated to 
the Race.  You can see all the different planes and the results there 
and links to even more.  Heck, why doesn't everyone just ride along 
too!  There is a link to a teaser trailer from Frank Pullano's 
documentary video on the Race in the first AVCup Race section!  It's 
amazing stuff and the video should be really something.   You can 
also get a 2 hour video documentary on DVD from Frank on last year's 
race too!  My Velocity in flight shows up in the teaser just after 
Frank Pullano crosses the finish line in his fighter-like VariEZ! 
I've never seen her in flight before from that perspective and it was 
way cool.

See the "AirVenture Cup Race"  section on my web page -
http://www.rguerra.com/velocity/

I talked about the Race at the Velocity Dinner.  I'm planning on 
being there next year and I hope there are a few Velocity's entered. 
I hope everyone takes a look at the official info and considers 
joining in -  maybe we can have our own class!  :-)

Rich Guerra
Velocity XL RG N724X
http://www.rguerra.com/velocity/