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AirVenture Cup RaceWaupaca verified the airport would behappy to host the racers. Lange evenhad the finish-line briefing sheet fromhis SARL race to give to the Mitchellracers.In a few, short hours the decision tomove the race-course had been made,airports and the FAA were notified, theturning-point and finish-line crews weremoving, and the racers were briefedon the changes. Only a few hours laterthan planned, the racers were off.Since the first AirVenture Cup Racein 1998, weather and other unexpectedconditions have been the norm. Infact, a race going “as planned” is a rareoccurrence. One regular racer evenwondered, “I don’t know why you guysspend so much time planning this thingbeforehand. It seems like you alwaysfigure it out just fine Sunday morning.”Despite the last-minute coursechange, the 2012 race was a hugesuccess. The one thing the weather didAIRCRAFT MAINTENANCEBY MOREY’SServicing MostMakes & Models• Airframe & Powerplant• Skilled/Award-Winning Technicians• Excellent TurnaroundFor Appointment, Contact Al Barger608-836-1711 • www.MoreyAirport.comMorey Airplane CompanyMiddleton Municipal Airport-Morey Field (C29)Middleton, WisconsinI cannot thank AFIT enough for all of the time,expertise and professional guidance these lastnine days. Your program, the follow-up, and theactual training were well designed and individuallytailored to get me to my ultimate goal of earning myinstrument rating and license in less than ten days.Scott A. Dillion, President - SDI Travel and Incentives, Chicago, ILVisit www.afit-info.com for more infoor call 866-270-8224 38 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 MIDWEST FLYER MAGAZINEprovide was a strong tailwind. This wasthe first time a tailwind was presentsince the west-to-east course was startedin 2008, and almost all the racers werehappy to find they had set new records.However, the race itself is only asmall part of the complete AirVentureCup event. Much of the attractioncomes from the camaraderie andfriendship built up over the years ofcompetition. The Friday night informaldinner, the Saturday banquet/briefing,and the post-race awards dinner atOshkosh are important parts of theevent. Seeing the latest aircraft changesis another part of the occasion. Manytimes there will be a group of racershuddled around an airplane examining(or debugging) some new scoop, faring,cooling plenum design, or other system.Racing gives builders an additionalimpetus for continual tweaking andadjustment of their craft in search ofthat extra knot of speed.Pilots have many different reasonsfor participating in the race. Noteverybody is simply interested inbeating other planes to the finish. Allof the racers are interested in improvingboth the speed of their aircraft and theirpiloting skills to fly the best course.Many compete against themselves,trying to set new “personal best”records. The sides of quite a few planeshave lists of past performance at variousevents painted on them.Pilot skill level varies over the entirespectrum. Not surprisingly, there aresome highly experienced racers, somewith military backgrounds. Lee Bethel,president of the Sport Class at Reno, isa regular participant along with DickKeyt, the owner of the Polen Special.In addition to the regular racers, therehave been some notable celebrities:Hoot Gibson, Daryl Greenamyer, BruceBohanon, and Kevin Eldridge are someof the most recognizable. On the otherend of the spectrum, Eric Whyte recallsone person who called about registeringfor the race, saying he would be there“assuming he passed his private-pilotcheckride next week.”The airplanes are as varied as thepilots. On the extreme end of thespectrum, there is a turbine division,and some of the planes are purposebuiltracers like the Polen, NemesisNXT, and Soneri. Most of the planesare high-performance homebuilts, likethe Lancair, Quest Venture, Glasair,SX-300, and Wittman Tailwind. Thereare a number of various RVs andRutan designs, too (in fact, there aretwo RV-only classes). While largedisplacementengines and turbochargersare common, there are many moremodest powerplants. For example, JeffLange flies his VW-powered Soneri (toa 200 mph record this year). Recently,there have also been an increasingnumber of Light Sport Aircraft in therace, including a Kitfox, Pietenpol, andRans-S12S.There are always some unusualaircraft that make an appearance. Thisyear there were three Rutan Defiants.Tres Clements of Scaled Compositesbrought Burt Rutan’s distinctiveBoomerang to act as a chase-plane. Thiswas Tres’ second AirVenture Cup Race.In 2009, he raced in a Pietenpol.When the race is hosted by Mitchell,the event takes on a much largerscope. The AirVenture Cup weekendis probably the second largest aviationevent in South Dakota, second only tothe Sioux Falls air show. The airport,fixed base operation, South DakotaOffice of Aeronautics, and the Mitchellcommunity are all big supporters.“AirVenture Cup Saturday” atMitchell is an airport open house,organized by the Wright Brothersfixed base operation and airportmanagement. Over the course of theday a few thousand people will visit.This year there was a rodeo going onthe same weekend, so attendance was abit down, but 1500 people still stoppedby to look at the planes and talk withthe racers. The rodeo asked the raceto participate, and they did a fly-overof the parade in the morning, and aformation flight over the arena in theafternoon.Along with the open house, thereis a Young Eagles rally on Saturday.Despite the lack of a local EAA chapter,it is a huge event. In 2010, almost 200afitfinalrevised.indd 14/6/11 12:59:35 PM