Racing to the Finish......

We landed in Frederick, MD around 6pm tonight. I will tell you ALL about trip tomorrow once I can think straight and post more photos. Just so you are not bored tonight here is an article from the FrederickNewsPost.com. Enjoy and Nite-Nite...


Air Race Classic to touch down in Frederick
Originally published June 23, 2010

By Blair Ames
News-Post Staff

Photo by The News-Press, Fort Myers, Fla.

Pilot Terry Carbonell, above, of Alva, Fla., prepares her plane on Tuesday before takeoff for a four-day race that leaves Page Field General Aviation Airport in Fort Myers, Fla. More than 100 female pilots, working in teams of 52 aircraft, will participate in the race that stops in eight cities, ending in Frederick.

The sky above Frederick will be full of airplanes Thursday and Friday as 52 aircraft flying in the largest all-female air race in the country touch down at Frederick Municipal Airport.
The 34th annual Air Race Classic is holding the terminus of its race in Frederick and is landing for the first time in Maryland. The race started Tuesday in Fort Myers, Fla., with the deadline for racers to arrive in Frederick set at 5 p.m. Friday.

The 52 teams are made up of two to three pilots per team totaling 113 female aviators. Pilots range in age from 18 to 92.

Carolyn Van Newkirk from York, Pa., is racing with Frederick resident Lin Caywood and is flying her 18th air race.

"I am thrilled that Frederick is hosting the terminus for this year's race, right in my backyard," she said. "We need events like this to bring the excitement of aviation into different parts of the country."

Caywood, competing in her first race, is the chairwoman of the terminus committee and has been involved in planning the event since the beginning.

"It's a great honor for the state and for our chapter, the Sugarloaf Ninety-Nines," she said.

Besides Caywood, other local racers include fellow Sugarloaf Ninety-Nines chapter members Susan Beall and Sandi Terkelsen.

The race is landing in Frederick because of the advocacy of Terry Carbonell, Air Race Classic secretary and Maryland native.

Carbonell picked Frederick "because she was familiar with it and thought it was a beautiful, historic town," event consultant Gail Norman said.

This is the largest all-female aviation race in the country. The only other all-female air race is the Palms to Pines Air Race for Women, where pilots fly from Santa Monica, Calif., to Bend, Ore., in two days.

During the Air Race Classic pilots will race a total of more than 2,400 miles starting in Fort Myers, with mandatory stops in Waycross, Ga., Tuscaloosa, Ala., Hot Springs, Ark., Cameron, Mo., Carbondale-Murphysboro, Ill., Elkhart, Ind., Parkersburg, W.Va., and finally into Frederick .

The racers do not need to land at each checkpoint, but if they decide not to land, then they must perform a "fly-by" to be timed.

The race is unusual because the first airplane to land in Frederick isn't necessarily the winner. Planes are scored based on handicaps, which are set as the plane's current, demonstrated and best ground speed. Planes are assigned a handicapped speed and the goal is to have the actual ground speed be as far more than the handicap speed as possible.

A team's score is calculated by incorporating their handicap. Scores are calculated for each leg by taking the airplane's ground speed, subtracting any penalties and then subtracting the airplane's handicap.

With the scoring of the race based on the racer's handicap, the results of the race will not be calculated until Sunday. Racers will discover the winner Sunday night during an awards banquet at Dutch's Daughter restaurant.

Some racers will receive a hint on how well they fared against their competitors Saturday. The top 12 airplanes in the standings must be inspected to ensure there was no cheating. If a racer receives a call Saturday that her airplane needs to be inspected, then she knows she placed well.

Racers this year are competing for a prize pool totaling $15,000. First place will receive a cash prize of $5,000 and second will receive $3,000. Tenth place is the last place awarded a prize of $350.

Apart from the $15,000 prize pool, the lowest-scoring team is awarded the SOS Claude Glasson Award, which comes with $100. For each leg of the race, prizes are awarded to the four highest-scoring teams for that leg. The top 10 finishers are not eligible for the leg prizes.

Although many would like to win, most race to sharpen their aviation skills based on a survey conducted by Van Newkirk. Of 100 responses, the second most popular reason the women race is to be challenged, with the third being to enjoy the competition, the fourth to have the opportunities and finally some just race to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow female pilots.

"Most race for the experience, but there are numerous die-hards who really want to win," Van Newkirk said.

A component of the race is the collegiate competition. These eight college teams are competing for the Collegiate Challenge trophy. The large traveling trophy is engraved with the winning team's names and stays in the victor's school trophy case until the next race.

"These teams have been practicing all year for this," Caywood said.

The goal of the race isn't to finish first, but to fly the perfect cross-country trip. Any entry has an equal chance of victory depending on the accuracy of the handicapping, not the horsepower of the plane.

During the race, pilots must follow visual flight rules that prevent them from flying at night. With each leg expected to take between two and three hours, most pilots could finish Thursday if the weather holds.