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Mar 02
Love3

The Women who Race at Reno

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So proud of these racers. Pick up a copy of the March issue of EAA Sport Aviation to read their story, The Women Who Race at Reno by Karen Morss.

If you are a current EAA member, you can view this months issue online here:

http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-education-and-resources/eaa-magazines-and-publications/eaa-sport-aviation-magazine

This year the Sport Class established a new perpetual trophy in the memory of Lee Behel.  It is awarded to the fasted women racer each year in the Sport Class.  This year the ‘Race Angel’ was awarded to Colleen Keller who qualified at 299.14mph to capture the honor. Congratulations, Colleen.
Feb 10
Love0

RARA Names New President and CEO

By News

Reno, Nev. – The Reno Air Racing Association (RARA) has tapped former Coca-Cola executive, Micheal (Mike) Crowell, as president and chief executive officer of the National Championship Air Races.

Throughout his established career at Coca-Cola, Crowell managed bottling facilities in the United States, Middle East and Asia. Crowell has a strong reputation as a leader in sales and marketing as well as his highly effective management of operational cost controls. 

“We are extremely fortunate to have someone of Mike’s caliber step in to take the helm at the Reno Air Races,” said John Agather, chairman of the RARA board of directors. “We are looking to Mike to bring his leadership, experience and expertise in running efficient organizations to the Reno Air Races so that we can ensure this important northern Nevada event is successful for many years to come.”

Crowell has spent the last 11 years in Reno since retiring from Coca-Cola, and was previously in Reno from 1982-1987 as executive vice-president/general manager of Shoeshone Coca-Cola Bottling Co., and as vice president/branch manager of Home Federal Savings Bank of Nevada. Prior to retiring he served as president/director of Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia where he was responsible for ten bottling plants with 26 bottling lines and 142 sales centers. While there he was credited with numerous key accomplishments including 45% growth in volume.

“I spent my entire career ensuring that the organizations I worked for saw results – results in sales, results in efficient operations, results in the bottom line,” said Crowell. “I’m looking forward to putting those skills to work for an event that not only makes a huge economic impact on our community, but one that air racing fans from literally all over the world come to enjoy each year. I’m fortunate to have the help of our dedicated staff, a supportive board of directors, our sponsors and amazing volunteers in that effort.”

The 52nd Annual National Championship Air Races will be held September 16-20, 2015 at Reno Stead Airport. For more information go to: http://airrace.org

Jan 26
Love0

Blue Thunder II Status Report 01-20-15

By News

Press release: For immediate release.
“Blue Thunder II Status Report”
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
www.BlueThunderAirRacing.com

Now that we are three weeks into the New Year, We’re hoping everyone had a joyous holiday season.

The picture above is of our September engine installed on the Exotic Engine dynamometer. The power transmission is bolted directly to the crank shaft at the front of the engine without the PSRU installed. The headers were built just for the dyno so that the exhaust could be directed out through the roof of the building and making possible the use of lambda sensors. The oil tank can be seen to the left and the Thunder Mustang “rams horns” attached to the throttle bodies upside down, with a tuba shaped funnel on top to smooth out the airflow into the engine. The wiring harness and ECUs are hanging on chains from the ceiling.

Jim Horn from Exotic Engines; Fred Roscher, CEO of 51 Aero; Mike Cummings, Blue Thunder II crew chief and I spent two full days tuning the MoTeC program for maximum engine performance at a maximum 6000 RPM . I can conclude that we all learned a lot and achieved my most optimistic horse power expectations for this engine, but had to back off from this peak because the EGTs were exceeding 1400 degrees. On the final dyno pull, the horse power was still climbing at 6500 RPM and was quite fuel efficient at .45 BSFC.

From the cam shaft serial number I found that it was manufactured by LSM Systems Engineering and when they were contacted, they were very helpful with the information about the cam and sent me a copy of the cam card. Mike and I have a policy of “Trust but Verify” so this last week we spent a lot of time verifying that the cam was installed per the cam card specifications and installing the PSRU.

The Blue Crew would like to highlight our newest sponsor, RC Engineering, http://www.rceng.com/ . We recommend them for all your fuel injector needs. We again thank all our fans and sponsors for their support without which this testing would not be possible.
John, Jan and the Blue Crew.

Blue Thunder Air Racing
5805 Alpha Avenue
Reno, Nevada 89506
(775) 677-4860

Oct 07
Love0

Sweet Dreams Lee Behel

By News

Sport Class Racers and Supporters,

Jay Behel, Vicky Benzing and Rick Vandam have been planning and preparing for a fitting send-off and celebration of life for our friend, leader, mentor and racing legend, Lee Behel.

The celebration will take place on Friday, October 31, 2014, from 11am to 3pm, at Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45), near Yosemite and Columbia, CA. Lee’s hangar is on the south side of the runway, near the west end (by the 9 numbers). There is a transient parking area on the south side of the runway, near midfield.

Sports Class members, please forward to your teams or others that you feel should be included.

We hope to see everyone in the beautiful setting of Pine Mountain Lake to say farewell to our dear friend Lee.

Cheers,
Bob Mills
President

Sep 27
Love2

Jeff LaVelle Wins Again! Sets Records!

By News

By Tom McNerney
Photo by Bruce Croft
TwoZeroWest.com

Jeff LaVelle back to his winning ways once again, sets new Qualifying and average race speed records at the 2014 Reno Air Races in his Glasair III.  Jeff now holds the new Sport Class Qualifying record of 409.812 mph!  And to top that off, during Heat 3A on Saturday Jeff posted a new record for average race speed over 6 laps of 403.227 mph!  Simply amazing.  The time preparing his Glasair III certainly has paid off as the airplane spent the majority of the week completely cowled up ready to go.  That is something not very common at the Gold level of racing and says a lot about how well he has the airplane running.

Congratulations to Jeff and we hope to learn some of his secrets for next year!

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