This year there were only three planes registered in the Sprint class, but one had to cancel his entry because his wife was ill. That left me and Dave Adams in his Long-Eze. No Klaus this year.
Sunday, the day of the race, a nasty storm system was pushing down through Wisconsin and Illinois and would probably be in Dayton later in the afternoon. The decision was to made to split the race into two legs, Dayton to Mattoon, IL, then after the storm passed, make it Mattoon to West Bend, WI (near Oshkosh).
We finally got in the air later than we should have and headed west-southwest for Mattoon. One of the fastest planes, Kevin Eldridge in his beautiful NXT racer aborted his takeoff when his canopy flew off. That was the first scratch of the day.
Usually, the fastest planes are off first, but this years starting order was basically a free-for all and I wound up near the end of the pack.
In the air things seemed okay and guys chatted on the race frequency about the upcoming weather. I heard one of the racers announce a return to Dayton for ignition problems.
We started hearing the advance guys talking about the approaching storm. There were black clouds and building turbulence. One of the racers, Mark Quinn said he was encountering moderate turbulence near Mattoon. A minute later his voice raised about two octaves and he announced "Severe turbulence!!".
Well, it was obvious we weren't going to make it to Mattoon and Terra Haute, IN was a convenient place to land. Imagine how it was for the tower and FBO personnel. A quiet Sunday is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of 16 or so race aircraft.
Some racers actually made it into Mattoon. Other aircraft diverted to Effingham, IL, French Lick, IN and some went back to Dayton. After the storm passed, some of the racers elected to just fly on up to Oshkosh, including Dave Adams. What a mess.
The next day, and after the fog and low ceiling lifted, the remaining 16 aircraft flew the race from Terra Haute and we eventually made it into AirVenture at Oshkosh.
There are several side stories to all this, but I am electing to protect the innocent.
So, how did I do? Since I was the only on in the class, I took first place in Sprint at a rather slow speed of 201 mph. We had headwinds and everyone posted slower speeds.
Here are the official results: http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/110727_avcup.html
This was my 21st trip to Oshkosh in my little Quickie.
No comments:
Post a Comment