"Team Sweet Baboo" Melinda Simmons and Judie Betz AIR RACE EXPERIENCE By Judie Betz 07-18-02 Talk about a fun flying experience! I spent two weeks in mid-June with a gal from Oxford flying in the 26th annual Air Race Classic, a women-only handicapped event. The race was scored on the basis of elapsed time flown. We flew her Cherokee 140 (with 160 horsepower) from LEE to Silver City, NM, the start location. There we met and enjoyed sightseeing and socializing with a real variety pack of lady aviators before heading cross-country. We took off at 8 a.m. on race day number one, 41 planes in trail, the locals lined up in their cars along the road to the airport to watch us depart. Pretty neat send-off! We pretty much ensured that we'd end in last place when we deviated from standard race procedures as soon as we left the ground at Silver City. When all the other planes opened up full-throttle and climbed to the north in a straight line, over the mountains, for Socorro, our first checkpoint we took a more southerly route to avoid the highest peaks, and had our throttle at a reasonable setting. Sure enough, four days later we came in last! But we earned the $100 booby prize, a bit of an honor (dubious) in itself. The race experience was one of learning and fun for us. Our route took us north through the area of this summer's severe fires, but other than some smoke-induced haze, we were not affected. We had mandatory check-points and stopping points, and we made them all, doing some fly-bys very professionally and others with much head scratching - our cockpit comments went something like this: "Where do you think they have the timing line at this place?" Or "Are you sure they meant to fly AGAINST the local traffic?" The course had us land at Las Vegas, NM, Burlington, CO, Ponca City, OK, Hot Springs, ARK, Fayetteville, TN, Winsboro, SC and the terminus, Chesapeake-Portsmouth, VA. Each place we landed we were treated as celebrities by the locals. We met outstanding people both in the race and working the course at the various stops. Spending so much time together, we made some very solid friendships in a relatively short time period. Some of the more senior racers had been doing this since Powder Puff Derby days, others were youngsters in flight departments at several universities, getting a good start on well-rounded experience for careers in aviation. We had a few mechanical glitches along the way, but nothing that caused us serious difficulties, plus now we know some more good mechanics in several new states! We only had one bad moment with the weather along the race route. After lots of high-altitude flying out west it was ironic that we had to go around the east's much lower Smoky Mountains when passing from Tennessee into North Carolina, but low ceilings with clouds full of lightening hanging down to hide the mountain tops made our decision to deviate from the race course an easy choice. It turned out to be an exceptionally good choice as we had trouble with our navigational equipment shortly thereafter! Once the race itself, and the associated scoring and celebrating festivities, were behind us, we were ready to leave Virginia for home. That' s when the weather gods stopped smiling on us. We thought it would be a simple five to six hour flight back into Leesburg, but we timed our return during the much-needed end to the East Coast's drought. We were glad to see how green everything was as we dodged thunderstorms through Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, but it took us two full days, with several unexpected stops in locations we hadn't imagined we'd be visiting to finally get here. Would I do it again? You bet? Would I do it differently? For sure. NEXT time I want to really compete to win!! |
 |