There is no wind at the Dead Cow lakebed northwest of Reno, Nevada. Yet the sand-colored dust swirls above the ground, obscuring two small airplanes, running side-by-side, spinning around nose to tail. The engines rev up and the pilots push them to the max before pulling the power to idle around halfway down the course.
In a cartoonlike drag race, the pilots pull their airplanes into a slip to slow down quickly, land beyond the line from which they had started—2,000 feet from the turn-around line—and hit the brakes to come to a complete stop. This is the World Championship Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) Drag competition at the High Sierra Fly-In (HSF). Like cowboys racing their horses around barrels, the pilots push their airplanes through the course, intent on getting to the finish line and stopping their aircraft before their opponents can.
