Reno Air Races 2007

[427TJ]

[ QUOTE ]
Didn't they stop those unlimited races for a while.?

[/ QUOTE ]

The National Air Races were halted after the 1949 Cleveland event, flown over the outer suburbs of Cleveland, when Bill Odom crashed in his modified P-51C. Odom had flown erraticly throughout the event, some saying that he was in over his head flying the modified Mustang fighter--Odom having been a medium bomber pilot during the war. During the final heat the airplane went out of control rounding a pylon and crashed into a house, killing a woman and her baby. The air races were revived in 1964 at Reno Sky Ranch by rancher and sportsman Bill Stead. (Bill Stead's brother, Croston Stead, was killed while in the USAF and nearby Stead AFB, the current site of the Reno races 1966-present, was named in his honor.) Bill Stead was also an unlimited hydroplane racer and several of the hydro guys jumped onto the air racing bandwagon in '64, bringing with them the hydroplane system of point allocation, etc. Bill Stead hired hydro driver Mira Slovak to fly his F8F-2 Bearcat and Slovak won the inaugural Reno event in 1964. Korean war F-86 Sabre ace Bob Love, in a borrowed P-51D, actually beat Slovak across the finish line but the cumbersome hydroplane points system awarded Slovak the win on the basis of higher cumulative points earned dusing the event. They hydro points system was abandoned for the '65 Reno races after several pilots protested.