Nicolas Ivanoff, of France won the sixth stop on the Red Bull Air Race series Sunday at Texas Motor SpeedwayinFort Worth, Texas. Britain’s Nigel Lamb was second and Pete McLeod, of Canada, was third. To draw attention to the upcoming races, American pilots Kirby Chambliss and Michael Goulian were 10th and 11th respectively. The races at Texas Motor Speedway mark the first time an air race has been held at a NASCAR track and the first time inside a stadium in the U.S. Tricky winds inside the stadium caused problems for pilots during qualifying (45 pylon hits) but the wind died down for the finals and Ivanoff had a “flawless” run on the final day. The race planes took off and landed from the infield inside the track. Because of the restricted area of the 1.5-mile track, the high-speed, low-altitude racecourse through Air Gate pylons were unusually tight and challenging for the pilots.
The Red Bull Air Race World Championship features 12 of the worlds best race pilots in a motor sport competition that combines speed, precision and skill as pilots navigate a low-level aerial track made up of air-filled pylons 25 meters high at speeds of up to 230 MPH while enduring forces of up to 10G. While the speeds do not approach those of the National Championship Air Races, which start next week in Reno, Nevada, the Red Bull races include some required, radical aerobatic maneuvers for each aircraft as part of completing each lap of the course, moving the event well into the third dimension. It was the first Red Bull race in the U.S. since a stop in New York in 2010.
