When Levitz crashed in 1999, my wife was shook up and Stan Brown, well established Reno attorney, air race pilot and on the original board of the Air Race Association told us a story of how in 1971 an engineering company was hired to run an analysis of an accident where a Bearcat at 400 mph lost a wing at pylon 8 heading for the pits/stands and what losses they might incur. The winter meeting was at Stan's home, imagine roaring fire place, enormous wood paneled room with board room like table, all with a drink and smoke after dinner, and the engineering firm made their findings known with copies of analysis, poster display, very complete. Stan went on to explain the horror in which the news of just how bad things could be in this worst case scenario. Stan asked if the company had copies of this at their offices and he said no, all were here, Stan collected them, and threw them in the roaring fire with all present knowing the truth of it was if the insurance companies knew this they would not insure.
He said that most of those men present there were dead, Stan would soon later pass and they all felt a heavy responsibility to keep things safe, buy as much land as seemed necessary at the time, but even in 1999 he said none of them thought the races would last 20 years., so we were 15 years past those men's longest forecast for longevity considering 1964 as the inception. The idea of buying the amount of land necessary to keep the entire valley clear was never imagined necessary because the races wouldn't last.
Later versions of the Air Race Association were better equipped financially and future forward thinking than that original board, the growth of the race in the 80's showed the potential, but that is when greed and malfeasance started to appear in many an onlookers opinion.
But who is to say it isn't a good end? I think it has run its course. The Unlimiteds were actually limited, their age, cost, and performance was going to eventually catch up with them... now they are investments, parts aren't held in junkyards, and old men got them going too fast for old ways of thinking of their operation, let me directly point the finger at Jimmy Leeward's complete and total responsibility to ownership, direction of maintenance and being pilot in command of an unairworthy, super modified Unlimited that caused the only crash at Reno to harm a bystander. This was because of the lack of reality that the airplanes were aging like the pilot, N79111 wasn't the same as it was when he bought it in 1983.
So, I see no race replacement. No longer will multi class events be held, and if pylon races take place it'll be F1 and Biplanes at large airshows with area sufficient for their 3 mile courses with one mile straights.
Actually I agree with Chuck's assessment of the virtual view gamer in his parent's house... those are the modern version of me and my buddies that flew models, worked to get dual instruction at the local airport and drove our sports cars on a pittance we had scrounged together to go to the races and watch actual men and machines in action. My eldest son had better things to do with his buddies rather than watch his old man fly in an actual pylon race... so the world is either an ever changing place for the worse or it has always been this way and we are all watching just one thing we liked pass by.
I'll be there to say my goodbyes, but it will be just to see the last race, my friends that are there and remember the old friends gone by... nearly 60 years is a pretty good run for anything.
Chris...
Topic: Reno National Championship Air Races-R.I.P. (Read 2731 times)