We're Home

After a wonderful racing adventure across the country, we have finally touched down home in Michigan (with Erin in the left seat for the first time ...yes, we are actually here, no kidding!), so we have selected a few photos from the "Disqualification" forward to share with everyone.

Here's what a "DQ" in a VFR race really looks like:



Yep, that's really Erin in the left seat ...Kelly must not have located her mind just yet after the DQ.



Still having a good time despite being joined at the hip 24/7 for two weeks -- the beginning of a very precious friendship....


We now pause for a commercial break from "Captain Crunch" ...(hypoxic at 10,000 feet???)


Up close and personal with a wall of cumulonimbus build-ups.


Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman! (or Erin working on her tan in Mansfield)



Now, for some fun with food:

Erin with her "prize" from a drawing at the race (no kidding) ...the $5,000 can of Pacific Fleet albacore tuna.


And now for Erin's next trick ...the infamous clam-snot! (never before seen by such a high-class audience)



The Green-Bean Bandits! (Our favorite B-747 Captain and our very own co-pilot)


Our Beechcraft Buddies, Gene Nora Jessen and Patty Mitchell. These ladies were an absolute inspiration to us throughout our journey and provided us with memories that we will treasure for a long time to come. Thanks Gene Nora and Patty, you guys rock! ...see you in Idaho in December!


And thanks to everyone out there that followed us through our amazing journey over almost 4,000 miles. We appreciate your support and kind words in our first Air Race Classic, and we look forward to sharing our future flying adventures.

Tailwinds and Blue Skies!
Kelly and Erin

We've Got The Mansfield Blues

First of all, sorry for the long pause between posts, ...we have had some "technical" difficulties with our connectivity, not to mention the emotional difficulties that came with our weather encounters yesterday. (Oh yes, and Erin wants me to let everyone know that I left the camera cord in the Wonder Chariot, so the pictures will be forthcoming). Long story short, we blasted off from Franklin, PA (which, by the way, has THE BEST airport restaurant on the planet - Primo Barones, which serves such massive quantities of Italian food that the Wonder Chariot almost bucked us out!) on our way to the last two fly-bys in Saratoga Springs, NY and Mansfield, Mass.

Unfortunately, the weather did not pan out as forecast, and about half-way to Saratoga Springs we found ourselves in a big '0l bowl of soup. With no apparent way to maintain visual separation from the clouds, and in an area of mountain terrain flying at a low altitude and at high speeds, we decided to make the dreaded call to Air Traffic Control for a "pop-up" IFR clearance to continue our flight and get to a safe altitude. At this moment, our hopes for air racing victory vanished. Under the rules, the flights must conducted under "VFR " - visual flight rules, i.e. clear of clouds, and since we obtained a clearance and proceeded into the clouds, we are now, regretfully disqualified from the race. Big bummer, yes, however, no race victory is worth a phone call back home to family and friends informing them that our wreckage was found on a mountainside somewhere in New York.

So to all of you that have been following us and cheering us on throughout the week, we send you our heartfelt thanks for your kindness and support. And to the women racers that embraced us with some of the best hugs that we have ever had and the kindest words of support and encouragement, we thank you dearly, ...from the bottoms of our broken hearts. We know that we did the right thing, it's just a hard pill to swallow after having had such a good run in our rookie year.

You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment you touch the perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfect speed, my son, is being there.

— Richard Bach, 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull,' 1970.

We're Finally in Mansfield

There is SO much to say about today, but we're really and truly exhausted this time. The internet signal in the hotel is marginal at best, but we wanted to tell everyone that we've arrived at the Terminus of the Race and that we're okay.

More tomorrow, provided we can find a wifi signal....

We Mean NO Hard Feelings

** Editor's Note: It's come to our attention that some may have interpreted certain elements of our blog as slams to other teams, other airplanes, and other individuals. As the writer and the one responsible for the content of this blog, Erin wants to apologize for for having offended anyone. It certainly wasn't my intention; Kelly & I have the utmost respect for ALL of the competitors in this race, and we sincerely hope that everyone flies their best cross-country. Sometimes I get over-excited about my level of competition, and I don't have a clue about the fact that it could be mis-interpreted. What I think is funny comes across as mean or thoughtless. I've edited previous posts and genuinely apologize for any hurt feelings I've caused. This race has been a blast and Kelly & I have been treated with nothing but respect and kindness by the other competitors. We can only hope they feel the same about Classic 31.
-- Erin

We're Almost There!

Wednesday, June 25 (* Warning: not proofread for typos, errors or misinformation -- it's after 0100 in the morning!*)

Though the finish line is still a day or two away, we're both beginning to feel like experienced racers. Until today we were feeling a little cocky, like we both could stand to choke down a big old piece of humble pie. Today we got that pie, complete with ice cream and whipped topping (can you tell we're missing the home cooking?!).

Thanks to last night's arrival into Aberdeen, South Dakota as the number 2 airplane, we were first out of there this morning (the #1 arrival opted not to depart), bright and early. But dawn came a little too early for Erin's liking -- by the time she'd channeled the blog and downloaded all the photos it was nearly time to blast off to the airport.

The Wonder Chariot started her engine at 0630 on the dot, and minutes later we were airborne enroute to Mason City, Iowa. We had a nice flight over in cool, smooth air -- very happy to have waited the night for the sake of a nice tail wind this morning. When we arrived into MCW it was already starting to fill up with teams that had spent the night (and fought headwinds the whole way out, we might add). There was a bunch of weather brewing out in Illinois, right about where we needed to be, of course. So we opted to cool our jets and check the weather in 30-minute intervals.

Getting the morning's THIRD weather briefing.

A few hours later, while no one seemed to be in a hurry to depart, we taxied out, flew the timing line to start the clock again, and bombed east with Mini Mo's fingers crossed. The weather didn't look spectacular, but we were confident that we'd sail smoothly across the Midwest in those tailwinds forecast to be significant. Unfortunately, no matter what altitude we cruised we never really found the strong ones. Still, we were relieved to not have headwinds.

But the weather closer to Decatur was closing in and we were racing IFR conditions to the airport. Or so we thought. So everyone thought, except the few who taxied out after we blasted off. We were concerned that we'd be stuck sitting in MCW all day and that the DEC weather wouldn't get better for hours. But after making a bit of a strategic error (we panicked and had a typical Piscean knee-jerk reaction) regarding an overcast layer and the possibility of no VFR hole down through which we could eventually descend, we ended up with a flight time for that leg that really bummed us out. Really. By the time we got to DEC we flew the timing line and continued on toward Frankfort, Kentucky.

Meanwhile, we tried to figure out what the hell happened, why we caved at the last minute. It must have been The Force. Mini Mo seemed like she'd been in a crappy mood all morning, so we tried some new things to cheer her up. We tied her to the compass (giving her more stability on take off) and adorned her with an anti-nausea bracelet/headband. Apparently that exacerbated the foul mood situation....

Those are white shoe polish-covered Cheerios (long story) on her light saber.

Thought this would make her happier, but we were wrong: this was the worst leg of the race.

It's pretty un-fun to race VFR through weather that's lacking The Force....

So after our fly-by in Decatur we made Mini Mo more comfortable and tried to shake off our disappointing run. The weather to Frankfort, Kentucky was different, but not a lot better. Again we were briefed that there would be good tail winds aloft, but again we were disappointed. After dodging afternoon cumulonimbus buildups we opted to lose altitude and fly lower into FFT. Deciding to stop in Kentucky's capital for awhile and chill out, bugging those kind folks at Flight Service, we flew the timing line and returned to land.

Since we were the first airplane into FFT so far the volunteers were very happy to see us. It's fun to be first into the airport, we'll admit. Decatur Tower seemed pleased to hear us and wished us good luck as we flew by to continue there, not stopping to land. The folks at FFT greeted us eagerly, insisting that we ate and drank. So while Kelly pottied Erin dug out a big brown bottle of locally brewed root beer and chugged it. You should have seen Kelly's face when she spotted Erin's "beer", assuming that she'd opted not to continue on now that she was most of the way through a cold brewsky!!

We agonized over when and if to go on to Franklin, Pennsylvania and were relieved when another competitor poked her head into the weather room to inquire about our plan. She was going, which sold us on the idea (yeah, lemmings), so the 4 of us trotted over to our airplanes. We took off about 10 minutes behind that team and passed them about 1/2 way through the 2-hour flight. The weather directly in front of our nose was good, but the crap brewing off to the west was reported to contain large hail, severe thunderstorms and embedded tornadoes. But our route of flight, if we were lucky, would be just to the east. Sweet!


We led the pack all the way and were the only ones of the 3 of us who had on-board weather radar. We talked from time to time on the common frequency, us sharing about where and what the weather was doing while the others contributed things like whether or not the MOAs (military ops areas) were "hot" or not. We played a little with altitudes and while we weren't
thrilled with the ground speed, we still were getting tailwinds. I wonder how many teams can say that they've had 100% tailwinds this whole race?

The arrival into FKL was uneventful, though it was tough to find the airport. We were so low coming in that we actually had to climb to see the runway in time to line up for the flyby! Once we parked, Erin ran over to put our name on the R.O.N. list so that we'd be the first to launch in the morning if we decide to go at 0630.

After tying down the W.C. and washing off the 4.6 pounds of bugs adhered to the surface,
we joined the other 2 teams (who both landed while we were doing chores) for dinner at the nice Italian restaurant on the field. After all, it was the least we could do for the folks who'd spent 2 days sitting outside waiting for all these airplanes to fly by!

Tomorrow will see us through to Mansfield, Massachusetts and the ARC Terminus, if we're lucky. But it's nice to be in a position to have only 3 hours of flying left and 39 hours left to pick and choose when to fly those last few hours!

We're Exhausted...

Tuesday, June 24





Day One started earlier than necessary with Kelly rattling around in the room around 0430. Nerves, tummy noises, excitement, the need for coffee.

After a mandatory b'fast for all racers we finally got out to the airport. In a zen-like trance we both grabbed a rag and our special top-secret blend of sprays and lubes and got to work. By the time our engine was started the Wonder Chariot was as fast as she was ever going to be.

In the interest of saving time (we've got to get up in 6.5 hours) I'll cut to the chase. Our first leg from BZN to MLS was fast. We abandoned our original plan to skim the tree tops and decided instead to climb high to take advantage of some pretty good tail winds. Funny how a week's worth of planning all goes to hell in a matter of seconds with the Weather Channel!

Actually, while Erin roamed around in a semi-conscious haze waiting for the coffee to kick in, the Fearless Leader (and self-appointed Weather Geek) checked winds aloft and formulated The New Plan. The New Plan made good sense and we were jiggy with it. We had our route and our altitude planned out and agreed upon, and we were happy with it.

And then we saw 30 airplanes all take off in front of us, some climbing like bats out of hell straight toward the mountain range, some zooming through the pass, some peeling off left, others headed toward the lower notch in the hills. Erin, true to form, second-guessed The New Plan and worried about taking the time to go through the pass. And, true to form, Kelly was the voice of reason that reminded us both that we'd already analyzed the info and come up with the best strategy. We'd best not dink with it now, waiting for take off.

As we were approaching the Timing Line a freakishly slow airplane managed to outfly their way in front of the W.C. and drop anchor in just the wrong moment. Kelly flew like a WWII ace and managed to keep us merely inches from their ass (no dual fly-bys allowed), but we had to throttle back a bit. That hurt, but only momentarily as the other airplane veered off to enter the traffic pattern to land while we careened the other way to continue on. We were thrilled, bummed, trembling with adrenaline and eager to get outta MLS which had become a wasp nest with airplanes. A lot of planes decided to land for whatever reason and we wanted nothing of them.

The next leg enroute to ABR was uneventful. We saw 5 or 6 planes along the way and passed them all. By the time we arrived in MLS we'd figured out a strategy and decided to land for fuel, check the weather and make a decision about whether or not to say the night, hoping for better winds tomorrow. When we pulled up on the ramp in ABR the guy parking us said, "Now, that's just not FAIR, your gorgeous airplane competing against all these others..." Yeah, too bad we're racing against our handicap as opposed to the other planes!

And speaking of our handicap, we' the only team that doesn't have one yet. ALL of the other airplanes know what they're racing against, but the organizers told us just before we headed out to the airport this morning that they hadn't figured it out yet. It's frustrating since they've had our complete paperwork for months, but that's the way this cookie has crumbled. We're nervous that they're waiting to see what kind of leg times we come up with enroute before they assign us a handicap speed, but there's nothing we can do about it. So we're flying our best race, hoping the Force is with us.

While we're on the topic of forces, we've got two things to say about that. Since our Debonair buddy Mo had to leave BZN prematurely to beat weather back home in NW Washington, we didn't get to say goodbye (being held hostage in those interminable briefings yesterday). So since we didn't get Mo's parting wisdom, we decided to take along a "Mini Mo". Here she is, spreading The Force around the airplane:

Here's to you, Mo! Thanks for The Force!

The other bit of housekeeping was to rid the W.C. of any foreign objects, namely insect carcasses. Erin is seen here with one of a myriad cans of our (not-so) secret ingredients:


As the rain falls outside the hotel window, The Princess Captain is sucking in her beauty rest and the Lowly Co-pilot slaves over computer screens. Being the captain allows one all of the glory. And in this case it's mostly deserved -- Kelly is a freakin' good pilot, a sh*t-hot weather geek, the Goddess of Oil Changes and an Outstanding Overall Team Ruler. But we all know that behind every good captain is an equally good first officer....

Captain Kelly, all snuggled in and dreaming sweetly.



Co-pilot Erin, double-fisted, still working late into the night....

We're (Almost) Off!

The 5-day wait in Bozeman, Montana is coming to an end!

The race starts at 0800 tomorrow and we're winding down, but I wanted to send these links to recent articles about my talented flying buddy and our race:

http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080622/LIFE/806220315/1111/NEWS18

http://www.brinkshofer.com/news_events.cfm?press_release_id=306


We've had a long day of briefings (over 6 hours of seminars) and last-minute strategic intelligence gathering. And we're pooped.

Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes and especially to our families (Lezlee, Jeanne, Katie, Baloo, Em, Junior, and Calvin Stanley) for holding down the forts while we're away for two weeks. This adventure of a lifetime wouldn't be possible without you seven.

Provided we have internet access tomorrow we'll let you know how Leg #1 unfolded!

Meanwhile, this is how we feel about today -- we've got our game faces on and we've opened up a rather large can of Whoop Ass!