FIRST LOOK – Air Race Postcard

To the three or four of you who actually visit my blog daily, you may remember that my wife T, was about to embark on a 2100 mile air race this week. Yeah this little buggy ride will take her and her partner on a circuitous jaunt from Central Florida to the Western Missouri border and then back to Eastern Maryland.

Well RACE DAY IS HERE and begins today at 0800H EDT from Ft. Meyers, Florida. The plane is prepped and the routes are planned. Now everything depends on weather and a healthy dose of GOOD MOJO. I know my wife is serious about this thing because I got a note today, that to reduce weight, she is shipping a bunch of clothes back and an empty computer case. I wisely did not mention that if she stopped eating and went to the gym once in awhile, she could have reduced weight too.

So what’s the deal, are the pilots and their laptop just going to fly around naked for the next 4 days? No I doubt it as I am sure my wife kept a few duds that she can wash the stink out in a hotel sink along the way. Oh sorry, you probably thought flying small planes was all about the romance of soaring in open blue skies as free as a bird. Well forget it. Not only in an air race, but for most of the time in little planes, somebody or something is always in your way these days. You always have to be mindful of the weather if not now, a half hour down the route and it can be VERY unforgiving. Particularly in a race, the pilots will probably close their cabin cooling air vents to decrease drag and will run the engine to peak performance – both are ‘hot’ propositions but not in the ‘cool’ sense.

So yes, unless Mother Nature steps up to throw a monkey wrench in our plans, this should be quite a show over the next few days. The pilots will post live during the race to their blog, and I will post photo updates regularly during each day of the race as well. By tradition whenever ‘T’ flies in one of these charity races, we produce a postcard for the team to carry, sign, and give away in the host cities and airports. As you may remember we had a late plane change this year, so I am very behind in my media production duties.

So consider this your back stage pass into air racing, because other than the pilots, you are the FIRST to see this postcard artwork as it heads to press. Enjoy, and if you have a few extra nickels left in your piglet bank for charity, please consider donating to Wings of Hope. Uh,yeah we borrowed a few hundred gallons of their fuel and it's my guess, they are hoping that we might pay them back? Cheers!