Events: Reno Air Races cope with COVID

Had plans continued to hold the races as scheduled September 16-20, RARA would have faced a much more costly, last-minute cancellation when smoke from California wildfires shrouded the course at Reno/Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada, for most of race week.

“As I’ve come to say to people, God works in mysterious ways. Had we not been cancelled by COVID, it would have been worse for us,” said Fred Telling, RARA board chairman and a veteran T-6 racer at Reno. He had to shoot the ILS flying into Reno during what would have been race week because visibility in smoke was less than two miles. “I’ve never done that in Reno,” he said. “On Friday morning it cleared up enough that there was seven or eight miles of visibility.”

“From a race standpoint we wouldn’t have been able to practice Sunday the week prior, or do our qualifications Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning,” said Tony Logoteta, RARA’s chief operating officer, noting that heat races normally begin on Wednesday afternoon—and conditions didn’t improve until Friday afternoon. “We have such an emphasis on safety that I can’t imagine we would have proceeded with no practice and no quals.”

The decision to cancel was made because of state restrictions on the size of public gatherings. RARA had spent eight or nine months planning for this year’s races when COVID hit and the organization lost admission, vendor, and sponsor income, Logoteta said. “If we’d just stubbornly gone forward, we wouldn’t be talking about the future. As painful as it was to make the decision, we know it was the right one.”

“The aviation community in 2020 was a wash. There isn’t a museum or event that isn’t struggling. We realize we’re not alone,” said Telling, adding that it’s even worse in Reno, which normally hosts numerous special events. “The Reno community itself has been hit hard. Air races make a significant contribution to the local economy.”

To help fill the void left by the cancelled races and keep its audience engaged, RARA live-streamed race footage from previous years. Its social media sites tallied nearly 200,000 live video views during September, with more than 2,000 hours of video watched. Some 150,000 social media views were logged just on September 19 and 20, which would have been the 2020 race weekend.

Some members of the Reno air racing community held an informal “September Family Race Reunion 2020” at the airport during what would have been race weekend, drawing between 70 and 100 people who gathered in small groups.

Logoteta said veteran racer Dennis Sanders told him that he’s been coming to Reno every September for years, and he wasn’t going to miss this year. Sanders did come for the reunion weekend—and he and his crew from Sanders Aeronautics in nearby Ione, California, brought not one but three Hawker Sea Furys.

“My dad took my brother and I, and my mom, and we all went to the Reno Air Races in 1968,” said Sanders, who won the 2019 Unlimited Gold championship in Dreadnaught , a modified Sea Fury—the same aircraft in which his son-in-law, Joel Swager, won the Unlimited Gold the year before. Sanders was almost 10 years old on that first visit, and has returned to Reno every September since. He began crewing for racers in 1977; his family took Dreadnaught for the first time in 1983—and it’s gone every year since, he said.

“I’ve gone to Reno so long, it’s kind of like duck hunting—we’re going to go,” he laughed. At first he was going to fly one airplane, then decided to take three Sea Furies— Dreadnaught , 924 , and Argonaut. Mike Brown, his next-door neighbor who races the P–51 Goldfinger , also flew to Reno, albeit not in his race airplane. “We went up there and we parked on the ramp where we always park. There must have been 50 people.”

On the ramp Sanders met a man who told him he was among 12 groups camping in the nearby Valley of Speed, like they always do during race week. He didn’t expect to see any aircraft. “It’s a fraternity, it’s a friendship. It’s what you do,” Sanders said.

RARA is kicking off a donation campaign, Logoteta said, and contributions to the “Save the Races” campaign can be made online now (airrace.org/save-the-races). While 2019 was a good year, the races lost money, he noted. “We still have a very large gap between where we need to be and where we are, financially.” And there’s a lot to look forward to in 2021, he added. It will be the premiere of the STOL competition, which was demonstrated in 2019 and has been officially accredited by the FAA; it would have debuted in 2020. “We’re really excited about that,” he said. “The fans really seem to dig it. It’s all right in front of them.

“I’m very heartened by the support we’ve had,” said Telling, adding that he also wants to show continued progress in introducing young people to aviation. RARA’s educational efforts reached more than 7,000 kids in 2019, he said.

The 2021 STIHL National Championship Air Races are scheduled for September 15-19.

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