Welcome to the Big Apple, the Red Bull Air Race in New York and New Jersey. It's been three years of planning and eight years of dreaming to get here. We can hardly wait to open the live blog on Friday morning -- our fingers are already getting itchy. Tune in and contribute to your heart's content starting Friday with the final two training sessions ahead of the weekend's race.
Morning! Training 3 at 10am
Weather is looking great, should be action from 10am today
I'm afraid not Tommy, but Qualifying and Race Day will be with us live
Two sessions today and then compensation training, no 'extra' time given yesterday's missing session
10-11:30 for T3, T4 is 14-14:45
10min delay on the start of Training
Les deux premères séances d'entrainement ont été annulées. Nous demarrons T3.
First two training sessions have...
fb.meTension building at the Race Airport with the first official training session this morning.
Paul Bonhomme, the championship leader, does the honors of going through the track first. His time is 1:13.17.
It's been another thrilling Red Bull Air Race season. Bonhomme won the first race in Abu Dhabi but Hannes Arch of Austria has won the last three in Perth, Rio and Windsor to cut Bonhomme's lead at the top to 2 points. Arch finished a dismal 11th in Abu Dhabi but bounced back strong.
Arch is in the track now with his first training run. He won the 2008 championship, catching Bonhomme with a late-season surge. In 2009 Bonhomme turned the tables and came from behind to overtake Arch.
It has been a long time since a pilot led the championship from start to finish -- Kirby Chambliss did it in 2006. This year Bonhomme got the early lead but has watched it melt away from race to race. Will history repeat itself? Will the early season leader fail to hold on to win the championship again? Stay tuned!
Arch gets a time of 1:14.01 in his first training run this morning. That is just 0.84 seconds behind Bonhomme. But Arch had 4 penalty seconds added to his total while Bonhomme only got 2 seconds in penalties added to his total. Arch's second training run in the morning is better and puts him in front of Bonhomme with a time of 1:11.75.
Arch has been in a good mood in New York. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy talking with NASCAR driver Brian Vickers and ex-Formula One driver David Coulthard in his hangar yesterday. They spent an hour comparing notes on their respective motorsports.
Live feeds for Qualifying and Race Day
It's a web-exclusive live Qualifying feed (but don't tell anyone ;)
Every pilot, it seems, wants to win the New York race. They've been talking about racing in the Big Apple all year. Staging a race in New York has been on the drawing board for years and it's finally happening this weekend. Here's a story about the history of getting to New York:
www.redbullairrace.comThe two Americans -- Michael Goulian and Kirby Chambliss -- are especially eager to win the New York race. Goulian is from Massachusetts and Chambliss is from Arizona. They've both won races in their Red Bull Air Race career but both would like nothing more than to win here.
But beyond the favourites Bonhomme and Arch is also another top favourite, Nigel Lamb of Britain. He's not yet won a race but has been in the top 4 every race this year and is in third place overall. New York is a tight, turn-filled track. That should give his plane a big advantage in the Big Apple. It's got winglets that help his MXS-R get through the turns faster. The winglets are a bit of a disadvantage of straighter tracks because they create more drag. But on a turn-filled course like New York it should give him a crucial edge.
Hi Snaz. Chances aren't bad. Red Bull Air Race and local officials have all expressed hopes that the New York race could become an annual fixture. Fingers crossed.
Here's more on that from Race Director Jim DiMatteo, who said he is hoping for a multi-year race in New York. Here's the DiMatteo interview:
www.redbullairrace.comLamb was just in the track -- which he has described as a 'bumble-bee in a jam jar'. His first training time is good: 1:12.02. Puts him in third place.
And behind Bonhomme, Arch, Lamb, Chambliss and Goulian there are four more pilots with an outside shot of winning in New York. Germany's Matthias Dolderer has a hot new Edge V3 plane and Canada's Pete McLeod. And don't forget Peter Besenyei of Hungary with a hot new Corvus plane. France's Nicolas Ivanoff is also always a contender.
Chambliss is in the track now, having a good run. His time is 1:13.64, good enough for fourth place so far in this first training session.
Some a-m-a-z-i-n-g images of Pete McLeod flying into the track just now with the skyline of Manhattan in the background. Unreal!
Fist face to face with the track....Take off time TeamMaclean 11:34
Steven Kirschbaum
Matt Youson
Kirsten Corrigan
Erik Kay
Jonathan Keebler
Will Radford
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