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A member of John Bagley's team polishes the
horizontal tail unit of the L-39. Between races there is much time for maintenance of the
airplanes. |
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Cliff Magee from Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the #25
closely behind Lee Behel with the # 7. Cliff wasn't able to overtake Lee. A whole 1.9 mph
separated the two pilots. |
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Also in the team of #25
"Giantkiller.Biz", they prepare the "Albatros" for the forthcoming
race. |
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John Bagley's #47 passes the home pylon. From
this perspective one can recognize the elegant form of the L-39 "Albatros". |
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Together with instructor-pilot Dave Morss, the
pilot of the #25 Cliff Magee goes up for an evening practice flight. |
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Pure nerve-racking flying: John Bagley wants
to overtake. John was an unbelievable 0.4 mph faster and put Lee Behel thereby into 5th
place. |
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Dave Morss, who flies in several classes,
rolls here in the #1 "Tejas Pistolaero" on the taxiway to runway 08. With 438,3
mph Dave reached the third place. |
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405,2 mph was the race speed of Terry Sonday
of Spring, Texas. The airline pilot took the seventh place with the #68 "Stress
Relief" and became the red lantern... |
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Terry Sonday rolls to the start. The taxiway
to runway 08 leads past the Spotter-platform and is especially furnished for the press.
This beautiful close-up is the result. |
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Lee Behel is also a very eager Reno
participant. Besides his L-39, in which he came in 5th this year, the Audi-Porsche dealer
flies also with a Lancair in the Sport Class. |
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The pace-plane #3 "Capitalist Pig"
is the only airplane that has a second man on board. This machine leads the pilots to the
start and opens the race. The pilot is Jim O'Neal from Houston, Texas. |
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John Penney is well-known to many readers as
pilot of the Unlimited Gold racer and record winner "Rare Bear". John also flies
the #2 in the Jet Class and reserved the first place with 454,2 mph. |
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John Bagley is a big airplane-fanatic. Besides
this L-39 entrepreneur from Rexburg, Idaho owns a P-63 Kingcobra and Bob Hoover's famous
yellow mustang "Ole Yeller", in which he flies in the Unlimited Race. |
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The second-placed Sal Rubino gave it all in a
hard fight with John Penney. But John was around 6 mph faster. |
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The start took place and the jets dive into
the race course, for John Penney with the #2 a start-to-finish victory. |
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Sal Rubino on touch down. The young
entrepreneur is probably one of the most active L-39 pilots in the USA. In addition Sal is
the proud owner of the beautiful P-51D mustang "Grim Reaper". |
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Similarly as in the T-6 class the jets are
also as close as possible to the standard version. This frequently gives very exciting
duels. Here Sal Rubino pursues John Penney, who is in the lead. |
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Yes, also in 2005 the jet Class was only for
L-39's. This could however not prevent "Hoot" Gibson from flying around the race
course with a Beech Premier. To the delight of the spectators, of course. |
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In the foreground John Bagley with #47 closes
in on Lee Behel with #7 and overtakes him a little later. John Bagley occupies the 4th
place with 423,5 mph. Behind him Cliff Magee with the # 25. |
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