Air Race Classic

We have had a full day of briefings and score sheet signing. We will head to the banquet hall shortly. Of course they make us all wait until after supper to announce any winners! We feel like we raced a good, clean race, so all we can do is be happy knowing we did the best we could! We’ll let you know the final results soon!

We made it to the finish! We have no idea how we did..we will find out tomorrow at the awards banquet! We’ll keep you posted. For now, we’re completing handicap rides, inspections, post race briefings, and more! And..of course..all of this has to happen at 6am PS..thank you for the flowers Mr n Mrs Price (aka Mom n Dad )

Erin's Family

Hey everyone Lanie here! The day began with a pre-take off briefing in Alliance, Nebraska. The new start time was 12:00 o’clock local time. As we lined up to wait for take-off the excitement began take over. We were now in race mode! After all the briefings we completed in the last 4 days nothing could prepare me for what was about to occur! Erin and I had been doing practice runs in the preceeding months, but I feel the best learning is from actually flying the race. We completed the first departure fly-by and the race was on! We were on our way to Great Bend, Kansas where Erin’s Aunt and Uncle were meeting us for a quick greeting! After we completed the fly-by at Great Bend we landed and refueled. We were greeted by Erin’s Aunt Dianna and Uncle Ron as soon as we shut down the engine. Her uncle Ron was so sweet and helped us clean the bugs off our airplane! We got refueled and said our good-byes to the lovely people of Great Bend, Kansas and taxied to the runway. We announced our take-off and depature fly-by and heading South for Borger, Texas! The terrian along this route was so different than what I’m used to! The sectional actually was a color besides green! There were sand hills, oil farms, and cliff drop offs! The Borger, TX airport was located on a hill surrouned by cliff drop-offs it was really amazing to fly over! We re-positioned ourselves for a 45 degree entry to the downwind and completed a successful landing!

Base leg for landing!

The people of Borger, Texas were so nice and even gave us an air-conditioned ride to the terminal! They provided us with sandwhichs and sodas! There was even a gentleman to shake our hand at the door welcoming us to Borger , Texas! The hotel were staying at provided us with transportation from the airport to the hotel & even offered to pick us up bright ‘n early! This race has been so exhilarating so far and I know that tomorrow will bring a new set of memories I’ll never forget!  As of right now the plan is to head to Norman, Oklahoma in the morning and El Dorado , Arkansas in the afternoon ! Wish us amazing tail-winds and safe travels!!

-Lanie

Classic Racer #38!!

After a long day with strong headwinds..we finally made it to Alliance, Nebraska. We’re exhausted but looking forward to a good night’s rest since no one can depart until noon tomorrow.
One of the coolest things about flying an Air Race Classic (besides meeting amazing female pilots and seeing our beautiful country from the air) is meeting all the locals along the way! There are so many volunteers that take their time to help in any way they can..tonight at Alliance we had a full welcoming committee complete with free pizza for starving racers! Then, a sweet girl give us a ride to the hotel 6 miles away.
We were even doubly surprised earlier today because in our stop at Norfolk, NE..which is NOT a race stop, just where we stopped for fuel enroute to Alliance..we had a nice gentleman help us with our self serve fuel AND push our plane to the tie down spot. He just happened to be at the airport and saw us freezing in the chilly northerly strong wind while we struggled to quickly secure our plane, and offered a lending hand..thank-you kind stranger!
Tomorrow we are hoping for clear skies and good tailwinds! And maybe a cheering committee at a couple stops from family in the area! Thank you again to everyone for your continued support and encouragement

Some pictures from the trip!

IMC!

Pretty Clouds!

We started the morning with the racers breakfast then spent the next couple hours checking weather and planning our flight to the new start. We left Iowa city around noon and just stopped for fuel in Norfolk, NE. There’s a neat little restaurant right on the field called Barnstormers We will check the wx again after filling up and decide if we’re going to continue to Alliance. We’ll keep you posted!

Well if you’ve looked at the weather lately, you may have seen a crazy line of weather headed our way that’s forecast to move into the northern portion of our race route. Late this evening we found out from the ARC board of directors that the first 5 legs of the race are being omitted, the race now starts at Alliance, NE, and our race end time is extended. That’s a lot to take in when we’ve spent the last couple months planning this route! We are responsible for flying ourselves from KIOW to KAIA by noon on Wed for official race start. Our first order of business was to head to the airport where all 46 airplanes were tied down in the grass..and try to find a secure place to put ours! Unfortunately the airport facilities only were able to put about half the fleet in the hangar, but we were able to move our plane to a real tie down place on the pavement. With the rain and storms coming, that makes for muddy grass that tie down stakes could easily lift out of, so we’re thankful to have it tied to concrete!
Tomorrow will be mainly focused on watching the weather and figuring a safe route to take to get to the race start..so keep your fingers crossed that the weather cooperates! Thanks and we’ll update you as we know more!

First and foremost we want to say Happy Father’s Day to our amazing daddys ..Gary Price and Dewey Murdock! We love you and thank-you for the love and support all our lives!
Today has been another busy day of race prep. We started off first thing this morning with our first “all-racer’s” briefing. There was a lot of material to cover in just the few hours we had together, and two of the ARC directors, Gretchen and Denise did a great job of explaining to us what we need to know.. At the end of the meeting I (Erin) was approached by Denise (one of the ARC directors in charge of aircraft handicapping) and she asked me if I felt comfortable being a check pilot for another team’s handicap flight. I agreed, so we headed out to the airport to see if the weather was finally going to cooperate for the handicap flights that still had to go. One of those teams is us! The handicap flight has to be done with someone else sitting in the copilot’s place to verify the procedures are followed correctly, so Lanie will fly our flight with another check pilot. The clouds were too low and too thick, so after an hour they called it a no-go and we all left (there’s about 10 teams of the 46 that still need handicap flights).
When we got back to the hotel we had some VERY important race business to take care of..we got manicures and pedicures! When we first arrived at the hotel on check-in day we had an envelope waiting for us.. in it was a gift certificate for a Mani/pedi for the two of us, from Christine (Erin’s teammate last year), and Christine’s mom, Patti. Thank you Christine and Patti!
After that we had some time to spend on planning and diagramming the fly-bys. Then it was time for our racers send-off banquet. It was a very nice banquet where we enjoyed the company of the other racers. The ARC made formal introductions of the racers in numerical order. We walked up when we were called, and received a 2011 racers charm with the route on it, then took a team picture. This year, the Air Race Classic is focusing on celebrating ARC history, so they had special recognition for women who had raced 25 or more races! These are amazing women with incredible life stories, and are such an inspiration to us!
After the banquet we took an all-racers picture, then a collegiate teams picture. There are 11 collegiate teams competing this year! We also took an “Illinois colleges” picture which included University of Illinois, Lewis University, and ourselves..Go Sakukis!
Tomorrow will be another busy day filled with fly-by briefings, a safety seminar, a weather briefing, a first time racers briefing (which I don’t have to be at so I have a phone appointment to talk to my kiddos while Lanie is in that meeting!) After all that, we’re going to head back out to the airport to try again on the handicap flight. Keep your fingers crossed for a window of cooperative weather..worst case scenario is we complete the handicap ride at the terminus, but it would he nice to know our “zero wind” speed so we knew how well we were doing along each leg.
Thank you again to everyone for all the support and well-wishes! And…happy father’s day

We (Melanie and Erin) successfully made the trip from KMDH to KIOW! Roger, our line service manager, was there to pull our airplane out of our hangar and wave to us as we left Carbondale. We got to practice using our GPS with xm weather to divert around a line of storms near St. Louis. (Thank you, Steve, for letting us borrow it for the race!) 2 and a half hours later we were safely on the ground in Iowa City! We were fortunate to have a couple volunteers from the local FBO help us drive the stakes into the ground for us so we could tie down the airplane..we definitely don’t want it rolling or drifting into anything since it’s going to be parked there for 3 days. It’s been a whirlwind of activity since we landed..everything from aircraft inspections (where they mark the engine to make sure we don’t make any timing adjustments along the race), to credentials meeting (where we show our licenses and endorsements to prove we’re actually pilots!) We also had a little bit of a rental car fiasco..no race experience would be complete without a few fiascos to deal with! The rental car company was out of compact cars and all they had left was a beefed up, extended cab, pickup truck!
This evening we have a meet and greet BBQ at one of the hangars at the airport. It has been fun seeing racers from last year and meeting new racers as well. This evening will allow for another opportunity to connect with more amazing female pilots from all around the country!

Lanie and Erin will be leaving this Friday, June 17th to head to Iowa City! The actual race starts Tuesday June 21, but there is a multitude of events at the start leading up to the race. We’ll be attending manditory briefings, pre-race banquets, and bringing the airplane in for inspections. We are so excited to embark on this journey and we appreciate everyone’s continued support!! Stay tuned for more updates