Last day before the race! The day began (after the now customary trip to IHOP) with an 8am briefing on all nine flyby procedures. We were advised to fly particularly accurately approaching one of the stops that requires a high speed flyby at 200 agl near a prison, because the guards have apparently assured us that they will shoot at planes that get too close! We also reviewed the start procedures for leaving Centennial tomorrow; and had a safety briefing; and a weather briefing by Dale from Lockheed Martin.
We went to the first part of the New Racers briefing at 1pm, where they described how to execute dual flybys. These occur when two racers arrive at the timing mark very close together, and both wish to execute the low speed flyby, rather than one party break away for spacing and thereby losing time. They were not allowed last year, so we were interested to see what the procedure is. I hope we won't actually get to do one of these. I have graphed out all the race teams including their speed and order of take off from Denver, so we can see which planes will be bunched close to us approaching the first stop in Liberal Kansas. This is a short leg (238 nm), and there will be 5 or 6 planes that will be right on top of us, so we will be watching and planning to make sure we can get our flyby slot without getting in anyone's way.
In between all of this I was taking phone messages and running to the hotel printer and fax machine trying to manage my house buying/ selling activities. Then, just to add an extra dollop of stress onto the whole situation, I broke a tooth while listening to the briefing and eating candies! It didn't hurt at all, but I was worried that it might suddenly start bothering me in the middle of the race, which would have been bad. How fortunate then that Colorado 99s volunteer Mary-Lou Pohl was on duty this afternoon, and her husband Raymond is a dentist!! Marylou drove me over to his office, and he confirmed that the tooth was chipped but not badly. He ground it down a bit so it was smooth and sent me on my way. Marylou and Raymond are both Mooney pilots, and it was great talking with them about mountain flying and air racing. I am truly grateful to both of you for helping me out!
While I was doing this, Mary finished the New Racers briefing then headed out to the airport to top up the oil and bring back the tranceiver for charging. We have both been running about all day, and are looking forward to an early dinner, then a chance to brief tomorrow's route, then an early bed.
No photos today, because there wasn't much to photograph, plus my new camera appears to have died although Mary's is fine. We'll definitely post photos tomorrow to show the first leg of the race though. We think the weather will be great Tues and Weds, but more iffy on Thurs, and so would like to get 3 legs under our belt tomorrow. The first three legs are Denver to Liberal Kansas; then on to Sweetwater Texas; then on to Lufkin Texas, a total of just over 800 nm. Hopefully tomorrow we will be blogging from Texas!
