On May third the Red Bull Air Race World Series was in San Diego. I had seen a little bit of it on TV on the Spike Channel or something and they had been showing commercials for it for the past month or so. Since Cassidy had gone down to San Diego to visit her family for a week about a month earlier, I asked if I could go for some "Daddy Time." I felt bad leaving her at home by herself for the weekend but with her this far along in the pregnancy we didn't want to take a chance and have her travel, especially because we know what happened last time we went to San Diego when she was twenty four weeks pregnant. I flew down on Friday morning and picked up a rental car and stayed with my in-laws. Cassidy has a little brother who is thirteen so on Saturday morning both he and I headed downtown. My parents flew in that morning to join us so we picked them up at the airport on our way to the races.
They had a special pit lane set up on Coronado Island on the Naval Base where we were able to go and see all of the planes and meet all of the pilots. It was amazing! The Navy had an F-18 there and Red Bull had come in and set up a Control Tower and they had a few other planes on display like a sea plane and their helicopters that they used to film the races. We met all the pilots and were able to gt autographs and take pictures with them. They were all really nice guys, they would take time and talk with you about their planes and one of them, a French pilot, spent ten minutes walking around trying to find someone to translate for him because my little brother-in-law Taylor asked him to make the autograph out to "Taylor" and he didn't know what a "y" was. They were really cool and it made the races a lot better when you knew who was in the plane.
Around noon we headed back across the bay to the Marina. The races were right on the bay and we were able to get right up front. There were so many people there, about 60,000 and it was all just standing room only on two piers right in San Diego Bay. The Navy and the Coast Gaurd brought in Helicpoters and planes and had them fly by and do some manuevers. It was awesome being so close. There were two rounds of races, each pilot would come in and fly through the course twice trying to post the best time. Between each round they would have entertainment like airplane fly-bys, skydivers and kite flyers. It was the equivalent of an Air Show and the Warped Tour and it was amazing.
If you have never heard of the Red Bull Air Race World Series, it's probably because it isn't as popular in the US as it is throughout the rest of the world. There are twelve pilots from all over the world. There are three from the US, three from Great Britain, and one each from Austria, Hungary, France, Russia, South Africa, and Spain. They fly ten races all over the world in places like Abu Dhabi, London, Perth, Stokholm, Budapest, and Rotterdam. There are two races in the US this year, San Diego and Detroit. Hundreds of thousands of people come out to watch and last year at a race in Rio de Janeiro Brasil, there were over a million people. They fly through a course of gates that are pylons filled with air. The pilots have to fly between the pylons but can't be too high or too low. There are also different types of gates, some are blue and others red. Through the blue gates they have to fly horizontal with their wings level and through the red gates they have to knife or fly with their wings vertical. There is a section called the chicane which they have to weave through and some courses include a half-cuban which is a loop and a roll that turns them completely around. The pilots fly three types of airplanes, most fly a plane called an Edge540 and there are also pilots who fly the Extra300 and a couple fly a plane call the MXS. They are all souped up aerobatic planes and they get flying up 250 MPH. It was one of the most fun things I have ever been to and I'll be back next year.
