Questions from the Cockpit: Reno reboot

Question from pretty much every pilot I know, in pretty much every state: What did you think of the National Championship Air Races in its new location?

Near the start of James Cameron’s epic movie “Titanic,” there’s a lovely transition between the present time and 1912, when Gloria Stuart’s Old Rose character starts telling the salvage dive team her story. All these decades later, she tells them, “I can still smell the fresh paint.”

For those of us who made the pilgrimage to the First Flag of the National Championship Air Races at Roswell, New Mexico, Sept. 10-14, 2025, it will be the smell of acres and acres of fresh asphalt our memories will carry for decades, along with that same sense of global newness.

The Reno/Stead location grew — and aged — organically over nearly 60 years. With Roswell it’s different. The state of New Mexico, local governments, and the Reno Air Racing Association (RARA) built a brand new turnkey venue from scratch at the Roswell Air Center (KROW).

And they did a brilliant job.

Is it a carbon copy of Reno? No — and thank God for that.

Fans had adjusted to its idiosyncrasies, but if you look at the old venue through freshly cleaned sunglasses, there was much that could have been improved upon.

That said, there is a certain spirit — maybe a base DNA, if you will — in the new grounds that will let the open-minded veteran fan settle in and quickly feel at home.

The Venue

By some miracle of fate, with the exception of a hangar for Sceye’s stratospheric airship, virtually nothing was ever built on the west side of the “smaller” of KROW’s two active runways, the north-south Runway 17-35. (I say smaller as, even though it’s 100 feet wide and more than 10,000 feet long, its sister Runway 3-21 is a whopping 13,000 feet by 150 wide. Yes, they can land 747s there.)

This left a wide-open landscape for a race course.

Better yet, the “neighbors” — a massive ranch — have agreed to keep the space free of development for at least the next 30 years, assuring that the races are free from the encroachment issues that nearly every other air operation or air event in the country is facing and, in fact, were the cause of the races having to relocate in the first place.

By a second miracle of fate, not much existed on the northwest corner of the airport grounds either, and this is where the massive triangle-shaped event grounds were established.

Using Google Earth, I estimate the event grounds at well over 100 acres. If you look at most satellite images, this area is still shown as “dirt,” but all of that dirt has disappeared under fresh asphalt.

These grounds include, neatly lined up along the flight line from north to south: A generous area for general admission seating (bring your own chair!), a large tiered grandstand with the box seating areas in front of it, the Chairman’s Tent, Checkered Flag Club grandstand, the VIP grandstand, and then the corporate chalets.

View-wise, there’s not a bad seat in the “house,” as the layout ensures clear lines of sight with no section blocking another.

Behind the seating areas are generous accommodations for vendors, with room to grow.

Many of the grandstands are portables, and the organizers made use of sturdy metal-skeleton tent-like buildings for the bulk of the clubs and other structures, and yet, the whole thing had a solid, permanent feel to it.

The Race Pits are on the south side of the venue with the biplanes and F1s in large community hangars on the northeast side of the grounds, making it an easy — although a long — walk to visit everything.

Speaking of long walks, one new thing is the considerable distance from the main gate to the grandstands across that barren wilderness of room-to-grow asphalt. It’s close to a half mile. That said, if you are patient, the races were running AirVenture-style John Deere tractor trains to move people back and forth.

The parking areas are mostly on dirt — or mud on the one day it rained this year. I won’t be surprised if there isn’t more fresh asphalt to address this by next year.

The only thing that might surprise the first-time visitor to KROW is the sheer number of commercial jets parked on the airport. The dry climate and long runways have made the sprawling ex-Air Force field an ideal boneyard for commercial airplanes.

Some are clearly salvaged for parts, with empty cowls hanging sadly under their faded wings and doors wide open, while others are neatly wrapped in foil and plastic, stored for future use.

The Racing

So how was the racing? Lovely.

One improvement, from the audience perspective, is that the new course was laid out so that the Valley of Speed has been moved from the far left to smack-dab in front of the grandstands. The best passing action happens right before your eyes.

And speaking of eyes, the flat land to the west of the airport allows for unobscured viewing of the entire race course. Yes, there are mountains on the distant horizon, but they are far enough away that it’s easy to keep the naked eye on the racers when they are on the back side of the course — even the tiny F1s.

Yeah, the Sport and Unlimited pulled out of the 2025 races, but in the end, I didn’t miss them as much as I expected to.

The event was lively and fun, and with the addition of the STOL Drag Class, operating on a dirt strip built for them right in front of the grandstands, there weren’t many dull moments.

With a mix of the neck and neck low-level STOL, growling T6s, nimble F1s, roaring jets, and graceful biplanes, the event was a feast for the eyes, ears, and soul.

Speaking of graceful, Moriarty, New Mexico-based pilot Bob Carlton put on an air show in a jet-powered sail plane that was probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life. It was completely mesmerizing.

The Commemorative Air Force brought the B-29 “FiFi” and the B-25 “Yellow Rose,” and both did fly-bys for the crowd, while the Palm Springs Air Museum brought a P-51 Mustang and a P-63 Kingcobra.

Also flying were a P-40 and a Corsair and Jim Peitz in his acro Bonanza put on a fun show along with the Smok N’ Thunder jet car.

Next year the Thunderbirds will be performing.

The first two days — Wednesday and Thursday — looked lightly attended to my eye, but at Reno those days were always lighter than Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as well.

By Friday, the grandstands were filling up. Saturday was looking solid before the sky opened up and rained out the bulk of the day. But the organization can hardly be held accountable for the capriciousness of Mother Nature.

The other days were hot, and I heard some complaining, but hey, Reno was sometimes crazy-stinking hot, too. And sometimes even freezing. And in New Mexico, too, I expect that each year will vary going forward.

Truth be told, October is a nicer time of year in that part of the Southwest, but I can understand that moving both the venue and the traditional time of year might be a bit much for the organizers, and they probably don’t want to compete with the world’s slowest air sport — the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta — which is held nearby in October each year.

Getting there

One exciting new option that pilot fans have at the Roswell venue is being able to fly yourself in.

Before and after the action, the TFR is lifted for GA traffic and there is a friendly Avflight FBO on the field with plenty of parking.

Don’t want to mess with that or figure that you might need a cold beer in the hot sun?

A member of the city council from Artesia, 30 miles south, told me that the city added a whopping 100 tie-down spaces to its airport, Artesia Municipal Airport (KATS). There also was a bus shuttle service to and from the races.

Commercially, it’s not as hard to get to Roswell as you might expect looking at it on the map. There are multiple daily commuter flights to and from Dallas-Fort Worth with a one-hour, one-minute flight time. From DFW I’m pretty sure you can pretty much get to anywhere in the world. Or said in the opposite direction: Wherever you live, you can probably get to DFW without too much trouble, and then it’s only a short one-hour hop to be literally on the air race grounds.

Lodging

The one thing Roswell lacks is a sufficient hotel infrastructure for a truly big turnout. I read somewhere that the city’s 30-odd hotels only have 2,275 rooms.

But there’s always Airbnb, and Artesia, just down the road, has a surprising number of hotels, even though it’s a smaller community.

Additionally, there is considerable space for RV camping and the race organizers have begun to work on a program of ready-to-go onsite rental RVs, as well.

The Community

It sounds trite, but it’s true: Roswell, New Mexico, is now officially the friendliest city in the United States. Even by southwestern standards, where folks tend to be friendly to strangers, Roswell rose above and beyond in a way that I’ve never seen in my life. Literally everyone I encountered from hotel clerks, to waitresses, to people on the street, were excited and supportive about the races, and genuinely concerned about the happiness of the fans.

But wrapped up in this fact comes my one negative about the whole experience. While the citizens were excited, none of the ones I talked to were able to go themselves. They couldn’t afford it.

Even though their tax dollars were part of the $28 million spent in New Mexico to build the venue, Roswell is not a wealthy community and most working folks are barely getting by.

I wasn’t the only one who became aware of this. A biplane crew chief told me that at Walmart, he and his pilot were talking to a young clerk during checkout while buying a roll of paper towels, and they asked the young man if he had been out to the races yet. When he admitted that going would take out too much of his weekly pay for him to cover his bills, the pilot got so upset he took a $100 bill out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk so that the young man could go see what his community was supporting.

To their credit, the race organization and the local schools did a great job of busing students in on Wednesday to experience the event, but it would be nice if something could be done for the working folks in the community. I’d love to see a local appreciation day on Wednesday or Thursday with sharply discounted tickets and parking.

True Confession

But my “reporting” wouldn’t be complete without a bit of a confession: I almost didn’t go.

After both the Sport and Unlimited classes pulled out, I was beginning to feel that I had overpaid for what was left of the event as I bought Checkered Flag Club tickets for the full season the first hour that they were available. When in the final hours RARA offered ticket holders the options of a full refund, apply your ticket to next year, or take a 10% discount, I dithered.

In the end, I did go, and I’m glad I did. Yes, I was now part of history, but I also had a damn fine time.

“Reno” has been rebooted and it’s better than ever.

For more information, including the race results, go to AirRace.org.