Jetrader - Winter 2017 - 45

2017 Winner Strega, flown by Jay Consalvi.

Sadly a static display only, the Rare Bear.

Swiss Formula 1 racer Vito Wypraechtiger.

There are still enough T-6s to race for a few more years.

The famous British warbird, a Spitfire at full speed.

Voodoo taxiing past the home pylon.

1996 and 1997 races. In 1998, another
Mustang - Dago Red - took over the
rein of the Unlimiteds and went on to win
all races between that year and 2003.
In 2005, Strega returned, flown by Curt
Brown without success. In 2006, Destefani
himself came back to fly "the witch," only
to hit technical problems that year and the
next. In 2008, Destefani was successful
again and took the Unlimited Gold. The
next year, however, he chose a 20-year-old
Hinton as Strega's next pilot, and the
rookie immediately won the race. Hinton
and Strega dominated Reno for the next
few years, winning the Unlimited Gold four
years in a row. At the 2013 races, Hinton
divorced from his witch and came under
the spell of the purple-and-green racer
Voodoo. Strega's new pilot, Matt Jackson,
suffered technical problems during the
heats but finally qualified at the back of
the field for the finals. Despite quickly
passing other racers, such as Precious
Metal and Rare Bear, he was unable to
catch up to Voodoo.

The next year, a shock jolted the air racing world as seven-time champion Destefani
ended his retirement in an effort to regain
the championship with Strega from his own
former pilot, the five-time reigning champion Hinton in Voodoo. Hinton, however,
beat the master and won again, though he
came under the witch's spell in 2015 and
was forced to retire Voodoo in the Gold
Finals, leaving victory to former astronaut
Gibson in... Strega. In 2016, reportedly
due to financial issues, Strega didn't race,
nor did the still-competitive Rare Bear,
which resulted in an easy victory for Hinton
and Voodoo over James "Jay" Consalvi,
who piloted the significantly slower
blue-and-silver Yak 11 R2800 Czech Mate.

Back to Today
Fast forward to September 2017. While
there are a significant number of original
warbirds participating in the races, the number of pure Unlimited racers is, well, limited.
The two Mustangs - Strega and Voodoo -
are in a class of their own, capable of speeds

just shy of 500 mph. Voodoo is once more
flown by Hinton, while Strega is now in the
hands of Consalvi. Closest to these two comes
a group of four Sea Furies: Dreadnought,
Sawbones, Argonaut and 924, all reaching
speeds around 400 mph. The field for the
Gold Finals was completed by Full Noise, a
Yakolov Yak 3M from New Zealand.
But before the races even started, race
fans were in for a shock, as Voodoo's trademark purple-and-green paint scheme was
replaced by a slightly disappointing allwhite livery. The paint scheme also featured
sponsorship from Aviation Partners, Inc.,
which is a name likely quite familiar to
many ISTAT members, as Aviation Partners
is the Seattle-based private company that
specializes in the design, production
and marketing of advanced-technology
winglet systems. Their joint venture with
Boeing (APB) is on the ISTAT membership
list. While initially designing winglets to
improve the performance of the Gulfstream
II business jet, today Aviation Partners'
products can be found as retrofits on
Jetrader * Winter 2017 45

Jetrader - Winter 2017

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