Special Assignment: Red Bull Air Race - San Diego

Day 1:

A night after getting to know the media and discover how great of a city San Diego is, I was pounding bottled water and gratis Red Bull to try to rid myself of a growing headache from the night before.

But looking out onto the water from the Media Center all pain went away and I started to relax under the California Sun, which has yet to reach Evanston.

The day started off as a celebration of Fleet Week, so naturally the fleet sailed through San Diego Bay. Monochromatic destroyers, cruisers and frigates of all sizes slowly chugged underneath the San Diego Harbor Bridge and into the Pacific Ocean. Then if the drone of big ship diesels wasn’t enough, booms could be heard periodically as fighter jets swarmed in pairs in the sky.

But this was all the warm-up for the Air Race, which for someone who had only seen short videoclips beforehand, it was exciting. Having to listen to the live play-by-play and commentary guys was vicious to the ear. They made mistakes and were not that interesting to listen to, but the pre-show was informative and featured helicopters, skydivers and BASE jumpers, including one who paraglided into a moving speed boat.

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of an Air Race (which I assume is most people) here is a short explanation, which fits into my lunchbreak.

Basically there are 12 pilots and two days of actual racing following training and they are racing super-lightweight aerobatic planes that have top speeds of 250 mph and are very maneuverable. Each plane goes through a series of gates that determine the manner of flight, whether it be horizontal, knife-edge or both. The pilots each get two full runs of the course and only their top time counts toward seeding and if they hit gates, are too low, too high or not at the correct angle, they receive a time penalty of between three and 10 seconds. The top eight pilots move on to a knockout-type quarterfinal round while the other four compete against each other for the last World Cup point. The four fastest in the Super Eight race head to head against in the semifinals to determine the final two, who face off against each other.

After I took a short jaunt to the Old Town Cinco de Mayo festival for some fresh tacos and a wrestling mask, the festivities began just 40 seconds from arrival. The Red Bull Air Race Qualifying was underway. Twelve pilots each had the chance to navigate the 13-gate course twice, reaching velocities of 370 km/h and withstanding almost 10 g’s. The speed and agility of the planes were remarkable as they ran through the course.

The surprising upstart Austrian, Hannes Arch, had the fastest run in training and therefore flew last, upstaging Britain’s Paul Bonhomme, who was fastest in each leg of during the first race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

But Bonhomme would not disappoint the nearly 100,000 fans in attendance. He recorded two of the fastest laps of the day and will have the top-seed in the Super Eights tomorrow.

Behind Bohomme finished two Americans, Kirby Chambliss and the 2007 World Series Winner Mike Mangold.

Sadly, a snafu with Red Bull’s communication meant we were unable to check out the pits or talk to the pilots, but hopefully that will be resolved tomorrow.

Either way, the finals should be very competitive with the Americans trying to pull of the upset over Bonhomme on their home turf.

Day 2:


Attending an event that is sponsored/organized by Red Bull means that a large portion of the Red Bull family will be in attendance. Witness last night. After checking out the first day party, we gravitated to a bar which had a live 80’s cover band and a secluded VIP basement for a less raucous environment. Wandering away from a cougar-fest, I passed moto-cross and rally-car champion Travis Pastrana walking up the stairs (though I didn’t know it was him until I was told later). Once in the basement we chatted with a Red Bull sports manager and introduced ourselves to champion freestyle skier Tanner Hall who was chilling in the corner. I discussed skiing, life and injuries with Hall, who was clearly enjoying himself at the party

“Do you know how many times I’ve reinvented this industry?” the blonde-dreadlocked Hall asked me. “Two, three, five times. You guys haven’t seen anything yet.”

So far the sky is the limit for a guy who recently won his X-Games record seventh gold medal less than three years after breaking both ankles attempting a jump over a chasm in Utah.

Moving on to the second day of the Air Race.

The first event was the Point One race, where the four slowest pilots race for ninth-place and one World Series point. Yesterday, French pilot Nicolas Ivanoff clipped the finish gate and had 10 seconds added to his time, putting him into the chase for the last point instead of posting one of the top times of the day. He responded well with a solid run, crushing rookie Glen Dell by more than 12 seconds. But it was not to last. British pilot Steve Jones clipped Ivanoff by a little over a second with an ultrafast second lap through the course to get the last point.

The last man into the Super Eights after Ivanoff, Hungarian Peter Besenyei was actually slower than three of the Point One competitors, which was probably due to his outdated plane (though he said he is getting a model in for either the next race or the following one).

The excitement continued when four pilots all compiled times within a second of each other, with Hannes Arch leading the bunch with a time of 1:20:04, followed by Mike Mangold, Kirby Chambliss and Michael Goulian. If the hot leader from qualifying, Bonhomme, stumbled and acquired a penalty in the windier conditions, Goulian would advance to the semifinals. But alas for the youngest American of the bunch, as Bonhomme crushed the course, beating Arch by more than two full seconds and reestablishing his dominance this season.

Bonhomme did not have a run above 80 seconds in five attempts over the weekend, but the rest of the pilots raised their game as only four were left flying.

In the first semifinal Bonhomme beat Chambliss with by just .79 seconds and Mangold upset Arch by .3 seconds to face-off against Bonhomme, something that was a recurring match-up last year.

But while Bonhomme blew the championship last season to allow Mangold to win, Bonhomme showed why he was the hottest pilot this year.

Posting another sub-78 second run, he beat Mangold by more than one minute to continue his streak of dominance and give him another nine World Series points. He now leads the championship with 18 and Mangold is second with 15.

As the race finished up, I jumped on a plane of my own to fly back to Evanston, thankful I got to see what this was all about (and also having the chance to visit San Diego during Fleet Week and a huge party).