The much anticipated Red Bull Air Race World Championship near Las Vegas was discontinued on Sunday when gusty winds hit the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Winds in excess of 30 mph took down several of the 82-foot inflatable course pylons, forcing race director Jim DiMatteo to call off the competition. At that stage, Great Britain’s Paul Bonhomme and Austrian Hannes Arch, who held the number one and two spots in overall points before the race, would have been eliminated in the Top 12 round and Canadian racer Pete McLeod had pulled out of the race.
Since the final races were not held, a winner was crowned based on Saturday’s qualifying rounds. As a result, McLeod snagged his first win with a score of 12 points, three more than the second place finisher Nigel Lamb of Great Britain, who is now in first place overall.
With only five points separating the top three racers, Lamb, Arch and Bonhomme, the final race of the year, set to take place in Spielberg, Austria, on October 25 and 26, is bound to be exciting.
If you bought a general admission ticket for Sunday’s event, you can mail it to Red Bull for a 50 percent credit for next year’s Vegas event, which will take place October 17 and 18. But you need to mail in your ticket by December 31 to take advantage of the credit offer.
Get exclusive online content like this delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for our free enewsletter.
We welcome your comments on flyingmag.com. In order to maintain a respectful environment, we ask that all comments be on-topic, respectful and spam-free. All comments made here are public and may be republished by Flying.
