Final flag at Reno air races is bittersweet

The 2023 Reno National Championship Air Races saw thousands of air racing fans come together at Reno/Stead Airport (KRTS) in the high desert of Nevada for a nostalgic farewell to the air racing site that is older than many of today’s racing pilots.

Racing first came to Reno in 1964 and to Stead two years later. As the city of Reno encroaches, the event will not take place at Stead again, but racing authorities say they are confident a new venue will be secured in time for the races in 2025.

Final tabulations are not in for the 2023 races, held Sept. 13-17, but race officials say early indicators show an estimated total attendance this year at 140,000, which would place the number 30% to 40% higher than most years in the past decade.

Parking, and lines to get in the gate, reflected the larger crowd size. Food vendors saw long waits, and official air race memorabilia quickly sold out. More post-race production of souvenir items was promised.

The ambience of auld lang syne that permeated Stead during the week got a sobering overlay of grief and sympathy on the final day when veteran T-6 racing pilots Nick Macy and Chris Rushing died in a collision following the T-6 Gold Race Sunday afternoon shortly after 2 p.m.

The rest of the day’s races, including the Unlimited championship races, were canceled.

Race week saw temperatures in the 50°s as sunrise illuminated aircraft canopies on the ramp. By the afternoon, mid- to upper-80s were the rule, with occasional faint zephyrs bringing brief respite from the heat of the day. Not bad for a farewell to a site that has seen everything from snow flurries to the stifling pall of wildfire smoke over the decades of the air races.

Race fans had several tiers and options for ticketing and access to the grounds, ranging from general admission, to reserved grandstand seating, to pit access.

With such large crowds attending this year, especially on the weekend, all areas were densely populated.

Because air races require time to position aircraft, launch aircraft, and recover aircraft, there are some down times between heat races. Air race organizers learned years ago that a good way to keep the crowd from getting restless was to intersperse non-race flying during the racing lulls throughout the day.

This year, special flying events included a Friday fly-by from a U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane, daily A-10 and F/A-18 jet demonstrations and heritage formations with warbirds, Nevada Air National Guard C-130s making cargo airdrops, and F-15 Eagle demonstrations.

There also were several non-competitive demonstration flights of vintage Unlimited air racers, including the spectacularly rebuilt P-51C Mustang once owned by actor Jimmy Stewart, the late Bob Hoover’s famed yellow P-51 that served as a pace plane at Reno, and Clay Lacy’s recognizable purple Mustang racer, now under the stewardship of Vicky Benzing.

Jim Peitz flew smooth aerobatics in his F33C Beechcraft Bonanza, and raced Bill Braack’s jet car. A British aerobatic design, the GB1 GameBird, was flown by Philipp Steinbach, the airplane’s designer. Dassault demonstrated its elegant Falcon 8X business jet, as did Honda with its HondaJet.

In the Unlimited heat races, where powerful surplus piston-engine fighters dating back to World War II hold sway, the Curtiss P-40E Warhawk campaigned by the Warhawk Air Museum and flown by Jim Thomas flew to an upset victory of sorts on Thursday, taking a second place heat finish at a speed of 325.652 miles per hour, besting a pair of P-51 Mustangs and coming in behind another P-51 that took the heat at 331.623 mph. Conventional wisdom favored the Mustangs, which boast a much higher top speed than a P-40.

The machine to watch this year was the reborn classic P-51D racer Bardahl Special, painted much as it had been when it raced here in the 1960s, but now benefiting from state-of-the-art airframe and engine modifications evolved since the Bardahl Special’s original heyday.

Pilot Steven Hinton qualified the Bardahl Special at a speed of 469.935 mph, more than 28 miles an hour faster than his nearest competitor.

And then it was all over. Quicker than scheduled, and subdued by the fatal crash on Sunday.

Still the faithful lingered on the ramp and in the pits as the setting sun leveraged clouds on the western horizon into artistic backdrops for photographs of the raceplanes.

Even as friends chatted, there was a palpable silence over Stead. No more would liquid-cooled V-12 warplane engines burble and roar in competition here as they had for more than a half-century.

The sense of silence was disrupted by the clank of heavy equipment, breaking down the concrete jersey barriers erected along the flightline for the races, and toting them away only hours after the racing stopped.

The final checkered flag has waved here.

For more information, included race results, go to AirRace.org.