The weather today brought a beautiful day for the air races. The temperature was about 88*, the winds were light, the relative humidity was about 15%, and the visibility must have been about 50 miles.
We arrived about 9:30 and bought tickets and pit passes for three days. Then we went straight to the pits. The only RV I saw was this RV-8 on static display at the Textron Lycoming tent. It's not a racer, but it's a nice plane. I can't confirm this but someone told me this RV belongs to the President of Textron Lycoming.
We spent a few hours just strolling the pits and taking photos of almost all the racers. The Unlimiteds always attract crowds because of their size, power, color and complexity. The pit area for the Unlimiteds is on the ramp and some teams have canopies or some source of shade for the crews that maintain them. I think they are called Unlimited because the funds must be "unlimited" to race one of these beasts. Some of the engines run as much as 130 inches of manifold boost and over 4000 horsepower.
We also toured the large hangars on the west end of the pits where the biplane, formula one, and sports class racers were parked. Jon Sharp's Nemesis NXT drew a considerable crowd in the Sports class hangar. He set a speed record in his class last week at 409 mph!
We also saw several races during the day as well as some good air show performers. I'll look up their names and post them later.
Oh yes, the United States Air Force Demonstration Team, also known as the Thunderbirds, put on their usual flawless routine. 
And a USAF F-22 Raptor also demonstrated its high speed and low speed flight
The last race of the day was a heat race in the Gold Unlimited class. Strega, Dago Red, Rare Bear and September Fury fought for the lead, but in the end, September Fury won. After the race was over, Rare Bear circled the field several times at altitude trying to sort out a stuck landing gear problem, but he finally got it to extend and he made a precautionary landing on the longer runway with the emergency crews standing by.
I updated my Picasa album with some of the better photos we made today. I still need to take some time to go through the photos and sort the good ones.
Josh and I plan to link up with some other RVers Saturday evening for the RenoRVRendezvous or R3.
That's all for Friday night.
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