Chambliss Wins Detroit Red Bull Race

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By one of the narrowest margins in Red Bull history, Arizona native Kirby Chambliss won the Detroit Red Bull Air Race title with a final race time of 1:12.08 beating runner up Paul Bonhomme by a mere 0.15 seconds. Austrian pilot Hannes Arch and Mike Mangold came in third and fourth place. The twelve competing pilots flew a modified qualifying round on Sunday because the flying was cancelled on Saturday due to winds. The race gates can normally withstand winds up to 40 knots, but wind gusts of more than 60 knots forced race officials to cancel on the grounds of safety as some of the gates were blown off their moorings.

Because of the modification, the pilots were only allowed one qualifying flight instead of normal two, further increasing the competition between the pilots. Also, the top four qualifiers moved on in the elimination round instead of the top eight as originally planned. Detroit marks the third stop in this year’s Red Bull Air Race tour, and the second stop in the United States. Over 750,000 spectators watched the race from both Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The next race will be in Stockholm, Sweden on July 5 and 6.


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