WIX Archives

Reno-Tuesday

Posted by Chuck on Tue Sep 10, 2002 08:44:58 PM

Hi all,
Another beautiful day in the desert at Reno. 49 degrees in the morning and 85 durinf the day. The big news of the day is that Strega, Tiger Destefani's P-51, had a carburator backfire at the finish pylon on a 485mph lap and the lower cowling blew off. It was quite disturbing to see and a real dissapointment for the unlimited class. He made a successful emergency landing and got it parked. He is probably through racing for the last time time.
So far, Czech Mate, Strega, and Critical Mass are out with major problems. Rare Bare is still being worked on at this point. It doesn't look good for the Bear this year.
John Bagley's P-63 flew today for the photographers and really yammed it up (a good show). He is a very friendly guy and loves to show off his airplane.
I homebuilt had a gear failure on landing and skidded down the runway until it the the grass and then flipped. No word around the ramp so I assume that the pilot is OK.
A nicely painted DC-4 firebomber flew in today because Stead is also a tanker base. He flew out this afternoon and we got to see the heavey, lumbering bird use all of the runway to take to the skies.
Another P-51 flew in as I was driving away so I will report on that tomorrow.
The Reno pictures should be going up every day on the home page. I think that I am overloading Scott with too many pictures but he is working really hard to get them up on the site. I think that everyone will enjoy them......
More soon

Follow Ups: