The route is set for the 47th Air Race Classic (ARC), the annual all-women cross-country airplane race. The 2024 race will begin June 18, 2024, at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Illinois, for a 2,628 statute mile competition across 11 states that ends June 21, 2024, at Northern Colorado Regional Airport in Fort Collins/Loveland, Colorado.
Intermediate stops are in Kokomo, Indiana; Cadillac, Michigan; Newark, Ohio; Monee, Illinois; Owatonna, Minnesota; Moberly, Missouri; Bartlesville, Oklahoma; and Dodge City, Kansas.
The teams of two or three pilots will have four days to complete the course, flying normally aspirated, piston-powered airplanes in visual flight conditions during daylight hours.
The oldest race of its kind in the nation, the Air Race Classic traces its roots to the 1929 Women’s Air Derby, also known as the Powder Puff Derby, in which Amelia Earhart and 19 other female pilots raced from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio.
The 2024 Air Race Classic celebrates the 95th anniversary of that historic competition, which marked the beginning of women’s air racing in the United States, according to officials.