400mph, 50 feet up—what it takes to race and win world’s fastest motorsport

PHOTO 01 Aviation Photography

In the summer of 2013, Andy Findlay found himself glancing down from the cockpit of his Lancair Super Legacy sport plane as he passed the start/finish pylon on the race course at Stead Airport, home of the Reno National Championship Air Races. Findlay was flying the famed Reno course for the first time."It was one of those moments in life where you knew that was exactly where you were supposed to be," Findlay says.

The Reno Air Races are the only bastion of competitive airplane racing in the world. For 54 years, pilots have raced airplanes there around an oval track in the sky, 50 to 100 feet (15-30m) above the desert at up to 500mph (800km/h). There is nofaster head-to-head motorsport.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments