When air race fans learned 2023 is the final year for the Reno Air Races in Reno, many began making plans to attend the event — so many, in fact, that opening day of online ticket sales overloaded the National Championship Air Race servers.
“While we had anticipated the final National Championship Air Races in Reno would be one of our best, we never imagined it would be so popular that the demand would overload our servers within a half hour of tickets going on sale,” officials noted.
Noting they are “humbled and appreciative of the enthusiasm from our air race family,” officials added that ticketing was able to resume “within a relatively short time.”
“We will stay on top of the situation and provide further updates as necessary, but we feel the situation is resolved as of now,” they said.
Officials said that “given the apparent demand,” they encourage fans to stay up-to-date “by following us on Facebook, monitoring the association’s newsletters and e-blasts, and purchasing tickets early to join us this September.”
The last National Championship Air Races in Reno will take place from Sept. 13-17, 2023.
Race officials said they are looking for a new location for the races as the Reno Tahoe Airport Authority made the decision to sunset the event at Reno-Stead Airport (KRTS), citing “the region’s significant growth, amongst other concerns.”
Reno-Tahoe airport is run by people who have been hostile to private aviation for a long time. The administration there has forgotten that, about ten years ago Reno traffic had dropped so low that the airport was at risk of losing its full time tower staff. Local Civil Air Patrol and the (now defunct) Reno Flying Service organized regional fly-ins and barbecues to get the take-offs and landing totals back up, thereby saving the tower staff’s jobs as well as keeping a full time tower in operation at Reno’s airport. The Reno airport did all that they could to kick experimental aircraft builders off of the Reno airport and the even went so far as to kick the Nevada Wing of the Civil Air Patrol off of the airport property. When local businessmen tried to start and Airframe and Powerplant school in the Reno area, the Reno airport refused to support the project. So, given the serial acts hostile toward civil aviation, it has become clear to me that Reno doesn’t deserve the Air Races.
The claim that Stead airfield is becoming too encumbered to permit the air races is a load of bull. Other locations where they host air shows and air races are far more densely populated. Stead field is an old B-29 base that has an immense amount of open space and is about a half hour north of the Reno-Tahoe airport.
I left Reno because of the crime, the filth from thousands of bums and the fact that everything there seems to be steeped in corruption. I hope that the air races find a new home in a community that really supports civil aviation. These days, I won’t even stop for fuel in Reno.