The 2023 National Championship Air Races attracted a number of vintage racing aircraft to the final event held at storied Reno/Stead Airport (KRTS). A highlight was the pristine white P-51D Mustang known as the Bardahl Special.
Purchased by a young Chuck Lyford in the early 1960s who had an affinity for fast vehicles, this Mustang, registered N2869D, enjoyed sponsorship from the Bardahl lubricants and motor additives company for several years.
During this time in the 1960s, Lyford surrounded himself with engine and airframe specialists who groomed the Bardahl Special to make it much more than a stock Mustang.
A nitrous oxide injection system boosted power significantly for short durations.
Further Merlin engine modifications borrowed some tech from the unlimited hydroplane community, allowing the introduction of a fuel and alcohol mixture that upped the engine’s horsepower to as high as 3,000.
Air racing historian Jim Larsen credits the Bardahl Special team with innovating a unique auxiliary cooling system for this hot-running Mustang as early as 1964. A spray bar in front of the radiator face in the ventral scoop issued water pumped from special tanks in the former wing gun bays. For high power, high temperature, periods of flight this water spray gave additional cooling, Jim said in his 1971 book, “Directory of Unlimited Class Pylon Air Racers.”
Aggressively clipped wings culminating in Hoerner wingtips complemented a shorter span horizontal stabilizer.
Chuck Lyford’s Mustang was a very intentional raceplane. And then it left the racing circuit after the 1967 Reno races.
Lyford’s plan was to modify the Mustang for a shot at the piston-engine speed record. Instead, N2869D emerged in the 1970s looking more stock.
It passed through several owners and pilots and paint schemes, and sustained damage in a runway mishap in Idaho in 2003.
The Bardahl Special returned to Reno for the 2022 races, and emerged in 2023 as a spectacular recreation of its classic 1960s good looks, but with a difference.
More than a half-century of Mustang unlimited racer improvements have been applied adroitly to this historic airframe, and pilot Steven Hinton qualified this Mustang for Reno at 469.935 miles per hour this year, besting all other unlimited 2023 qualifiers by at least 28 mph.
The result is an exciting air racer that promises to be keenly competitive while looking like its elder self from the 1960s.
Today’s Bardahl Special was readied for Reno 2023 with a little help from its friends.
The clipped wingtips this time around came from the P-51 racer Voodoo.
Other airframe components, like extended wing trailing edge fuselage fillets, were borrowed from the molds used on Voodoo.
Some racing parts owe their origin to the highly competitive Mustang racer called Strega, says Bardahl Special’s crew chief L.D. Hughes.
The ventral cooling scoop now serving Bardahl Special is a custom-designed inlet for racing, as used on Voodoo. From the mold for Voodoo’s scoop, the inlet for Bardahl Special uses 300 yards of carbon fiber construction custom fitted to this airframe.
And that all-important Merlin V-1650 V-12 engine is a product of Vintage V-12’s, the go-to engine shop in Tehachapi, California.
It’s a hybrid motor, taking an idea from hydroplane mechanics who found a way to use stout Allison engine connecting rods to beef up the Merlin powerplant for the demands of racing. That involves modifying the crankcase to accommodate the Allison parts.
And as wartime developments continued to improve engine technology even after the P-51D was in production, the Bardahl Special flies with a supercharger designed for the later F-82 Twin Mustang with re-sculpted supercharger blades for superior performance, explains Carson Zabel of the Bardahl Special team at Reno.
The engine is mounted with its angle of incidence up about one degree over that of a production Mustang, another calculated performance booster.
The heat exchanger in this Mustang is also a later design, from a P-51H Mustang.
A stock P-51D’s Merlin engine puts out a little over 1,300 horsepower. Race engines like the one in Bardahl Special can top out above 3,000 horsepower.
Carrying 80 gallons of 160-octane racing gasoline, Bardahl Special can spin its four-blade propeller at 3,400 rpm.
By shortening the tips just a few inches, the tip speed can be kept at a quieter subsonic speed around .92 Mach, sculpted to reduce drag, Carson explains.
Mustang racing teams have learned a few more tricks to boost their specialized machines. Bardahl Special’s wing flaps, when fully retracted, rest at a slightly different angle than on a stock Mustang, and the team says this can add from three to seven miles per hour to the racer’s speed.
And where a production P-51D had a two-degree vertical fin offset built in to counteract the physics of gyroscopic precession and P-factor, that also induces an aerodynamic inefficiency that the Bardahl Special team took out in the interest of drag reduction.
Some pilots memorize what the steam gauges on the instrument panel look like when all is functioning properly. A quick visual sweep of the panel will indicate if all the needles are pointing to acceptable engine operating levels. To simplify this visual inspection in the heat of a frantic air race, the Bardahl Special team has mounted the manifold pressure gauge upside down, so its needle points in a direction complementary to other gauges, and making the quick scan easier to perform.
Under a sheltering canopy in the Reno pits, the Bardahl Special team continuously groomed their machine in anticipation of the Gold race on the final day of the final races at Reno.
The tragic loss of T-6 pilots Nick Macy and Chris Rushing in a mid-air collision Sunday afternoon ended the 2023 races before the Unlimited Gold event.
But we have not heard the last of the Bardahl Special.
The current and ongoing modifications to the Bardahl Special promise to fulfill Chuck Lyford’s ambitions of nearly 60 years ago.
If his pioneering engine boosting efforts sometimes led to critical engine failures, they paved the way for ever-more-powerful Mustangs to follow.
Lyford’s sleek white P-51 still looks like a classic, but its clean simplicity hides some modern modifications that make the Bardahl Special… well… special.
What airplane won the Gold Reno Race 2024
Great article with one technical nit regarding the Bardahl Special: I think the 3400 rpm reference is to crankshaft rpm, not propeller rpm. With typical Merlin gearing, 3400 prop rpm would be equate to around 7000 crank rpm and to keep the prop tips subsonic would require shortening the blades to about 3′ long.
— The Old Math Geek
Great article. All of us were excited to see the final Race between Miss America, Dreadnaught, and the Bardahl Special. As I understand it, this aircraft won the first Reno Air Race and now the last. How exciting for all!!
I agree, great article. I want to publicly thank Steve Hinton and the entire Bardhal Special crew for the fantastic machine they brought to Reno this year. My father would have been very proud.
Charlie Lyford
Outstanding article due to its thorough coverage of technical details. A refreshing change compared to fluff AVWeb articles on SAF and eVTOLS. There are still “manly men” in aviation pushing the power and speed envelope. Good work Mr. Fred and GAN.