Reno Air Races and Air Racing History

stable of two or more race planes. Such valuable deeply-committed past participation from the likes of Ed Browning’s-Red Baron Team, the Whittington Brothers, Lloyd Hamilton, Jimmy Leeward, Wiley Sanders, Alan Preston , Ed Maloney’s- Planes of Fame Museum and the Frank Sanders Family, has not only helped the class assemble sufficient numbers of entries to make a field for each year’s racing events, while providing so much diversity, color and style - it inspires renewal of the ranks of contestants and fans. Today, some of those old faces are still with us, racing alongside the new-blood super teams headed by Howard Pardue, Bill Rheinschild, Bill Anders and most notably, David Price’s- Museum of Flying team out of Santa Monica, California.

One of the great bygone big race teams of the past, was the Casper, Wyoming-based TIRED IRON AIR RACE TEAM, put together by Don Davis and his friends in 1981. Davis grew up there and got into aviation by flagging for sprayer outfits, and learned to fly. While working for the bank, he bought a local FBO in Casper called Rocky Mountain Turbines. Davis hired Jack Swartz to run his FBO business, and eventually hooked-up with the Wright Brothers (really!) - Mike & Dick, who’d grown up around Chino’s warbirds and had good flying and maintenance experience, 36-year old corporate & ex-Navy pilot Earl Ketchen from Denver, pilot/mechanic-Jim Good, mechanic Chuck Reece and also a guy named Russ Johnson. All were air racing-minded, and joined forces under Don Davis to put the Tired Iron team together, with a P-51 and a T-6 as their stable for competition at Reno ’81. Ketchen was the team’s primary Unlimited race pilot then (Davis was an alternate), with Mike Wright assigned to pilot the T-6 (#77 “Wildcatter”, which is still campaigned at Reno today by Jim Good). Jack Swartz was the crew chief, and just about everyone shared in the wrenching duties. Davis bought the former Red Baron team’s equipment trailer from Ed Browning, and purchased Scott Smith’s - proven hot Mustang racer - N5449V, to be the team’s thoroughbred for rookie Ketchen to race, appropriately wearing race number 81, and still carrying her previously lucky-“Ge Ge II” name. The Tired Iron team went prepared for war out at the pylons, by coming with a pair of race-prepared Merlin engines for #81 - a Dave Zeuschel engine, and a second motor done by Mike Nixon. The Mustang was also refitted with a dark-tinted sliding D-model canopy, which made the black & checkered P-51 even more intimidating in appearance.

Reno ’81 - Rookie Blues

Reno weather was almost perfect as the 1981 race week opened for practice flying and qualifications. All three race courses were resurveyed from the previous year, and the Unlimited course was lengthened by just over a quarter mile to make it- 9.273mi.around. Unfortunately, during Wednesday’s late morning Unlimited qualifying period - the rookie Tired Iron team got started off on a bad hoof, when Earl Ketchen saddled up the Mustang and took off to get on the course to gain experience around the pylons, and got way more than he bargained for. Before he could get into the groove, #81 caught Ketchen by surprise with a serious throttle problem when a linkage bolt failed. Earl managed to get the Mustang down onto the alternate runway running toward the Lear Hangar close to the numbers, but to his dismay she ate up all 8000ft. in a fast gallop. Ketchen was horrified to find himself barreling directly towards the ramp & pits at a right angle and in a panicked voice radioed- “I can’t control it!” Instinctively, he lifted-off back into the air enough to execute a radical minimum altitude left bank under power, in an attempt to avoid the pits and the 3 planes and a fuel truck spotted on the ramp, and landed eastward on the taxi-way portion of the ramp parallel to the east-west runway. Onlookers were relieved and amazed, when Ketchen finally got the engine shutdown at a point near the finish line in his spooky landing - a Reno - ‘first’, and hopefully- the last! Only a couple ramp rats managed to catch it on film.

The team worked to rectify the throttle glitch, and on the next day - Ketchen successfully qualified N5449V at 381.082mph to grab the 9th position out of 25 aircraft making the field. During the start of Friday’s- 6-lap Heat-1B, Earl again found himself in a near-disaster situation at Pylon 7 on lap one, when he inadvertently crowded and cut-off Lloyd Hamilton in his #16 Sea Fury, forcing Hamilton to pull inside the course and miss the start line, which resulted in Hamilton getting a DNF and last place. Only four of the seven racers finished, and #81 ironically won the race at 368.857av/mph, after crossing Home Pylon in 2nd place ahead of Bob Love’s #2 Hovey-owned Mustang, because leader John Dilly’s- #19 P-51 cut Pylon 8 on lap 2 - putting him in third place. Lefty Gardner’s- P-38 finished fourth. Ketchen’s- $1570 prize money check for his shaky piloting performance in his rookie racing debut, was not worth the embarrassment and the ire of his fellow pilots in the race.

There was no respite from the gremlins dogging Earl Ketchen and #81 on Saturday, when magneto troubles forced him to taxi back to the pits to miss his call for Heat-2C, to end up with a DNS last place. They had one more chance to find some light in their dark tunnel, as the easy favorite to win Sunday’s- 9/20/81 Unlimited Bronze final. Ketchen and Ge Ge II, after a wild short-lived running battle with Lyle Shelton in his sick-running #77 Rare Bear which had to leave the race, did indeed run away from the rest of the pack to cross the finish first, but would again be denied, when the judges disqualified him for erratic flying and cutting the crowd deadline - another last place, after much effort. Thus, Bill Whittington’s- 344.008mph finish in his #8 Bearcat was enough for the trophy, despite Ketchen’s- 388+ mph 6-lap final average. It was an inauspicious beginning for Earl Ketchen and the Tired Iron Air Race Team, though Mike Wright did manage to earn them some credit in the T-6/SNJ Class with a second-place finish in that category’s Silver Race on Sunday. Disappointed, the team left Nevada feeling tired and bewildered to a man. It would be a tougher challenge to return the next year to compete. But as a testimony to their indomitable spirit, come back they did.

Reno ’82 - Comeback Trail

Don Davis and his teammates had big comeback plans for their return to race at Reno ’82, and immediately went to work upon returning to their Wyoming home base. The biggest priority was to further-refine #81 by adding some major airframe modifications in an attempt to increase her airspeed potential. John Maguire, an aerodynamics engineer from the Dallas/Ft.Worth area was enlisted to analyze N5449V, and make and install any mods deemed necessary. After conducting some wind flow tests, a pair of vertical fairings were fitted to both sides of the aft lower portion of the radiator belly scoop housing to get rid of the bubble of high pressure developing in front of the inlet duct, by channeling and speeding up the airflow going through and around it. The Mustang’s wings were clipped, and Hoerner/Cassidy-type wingtips with aileron fences were added as well. All internal systems were gone through, and the Zeuschel-prepared Merlin race engine was inspected and retuned.

Embracing a- “new name - new attitude” philosophy- as a finishing-touch to complete the team’s rework on the Mustang, it was decided to change her name, while keeping her midnight motif and race number. While searching around for ideas for a new handle for their quick bird and noting the somewhat sinister qualities of it’s dark appearance, someone brought up comparisons to the world’s most-famous all-black painted aircraft: Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird spyplane. When four Blackbirds began operating out of Kadena Air Force Base in 1968, native Okinawan islanders nicknamed the SR-71 - “HABU”, after noting its’ resemblance to their indigenous small, but deadly-poisonous, dark pit viper snake of that name. The Tired Iron team was thus inspired, to borrow the SR’s nickname for renaming their Unlimited racer. Race #81’s black & white checkerboard trim seemed to further-enhance their Mustang’s black snake look, and to totally illustrate the point - a ready-to-strike Habu snake on a white background was painted on both modified wing tips. Thus, a super-stocker racer shed its’ skin and became a truly- “stealthy-stocker” racer! 

The Tired Iron team returned in-force at Reno ’82. Complementing Habu and Wildcatter- Mike Wright brought the team’s FG-1D Corsair- #82 “Wart Hog” (N4715C) to race as well, and honcho Don Davis came with the Tired Iron B-25 to join the airshow aircraft on hand. Almost the entire race week was cold, wet and windy, but the racing proved to be hotter than ever. The Unlimited Course was again shortened a bit to 9.187-miles, by moving Outer Pylons 7 & 8 a tad inward. Two new rookie Gold-class racers joined the Unlimited ranks - Bill Destefani’s- #4 “Dago Red” P-51, flown by Ron Hevle, and Planes of Fame’s big and ‘brutiful’ home-brew F2G R-4360-powered Super Corsair- #1 “Budweiser Light Special”, flown by Steve Hinton. Dago Red set the pace for Unlimited qualifying, posting the top speed of 440.565mph to lead the field of 22 aircraft. Earl Ketchen qualified Habu in 12th position, and Mike Wright qualified the Corsair in last place at a lumbering 304.038mph - too slow to make the race field, but got earmarked to be the first alternate. Wright qualified the team’s T-6 in 9th position out of 25 Sixes. Two-time consecutive Unlimited Gold defending champion - Wiley Sanders’ P-51 #69 “Jeannie” struggled in vain to make a successful qualification, and lunched her Reno’81-’82 winning Zeuschel Merlin on Tuesday, and members of the Tired Iron team helped-out with the all-night engine change on #69 outside on the ramp, amid snow squalls. Jeannie’s- prop governor let go during the next day’s try, and was out for good with a second trashed Merlin. But the Tired Iron team’s efforts in helping out this competitor, and several other teams during the week, and their subsequent racing performances that year, helped dispel the class’ prejudices about the team’s shaky- 1981 rookie performance.