Reno 2017 Unlimited Gold race 

voodoo has been rebuilt and now flies 564 mph

Since Jay won the race he evidently flew the better line. Not bad for his second year of air racing at Reno!

That traffic definitely made a difference!

Robin unfortunately both strega and voodoo are being retired,which really sucks and the future of the races is in question

@soaringtractor I get t! Was just commenting on all of them in general. This was the orginal high preformance..

Yes, Voodoo & Strega are powered by highly modified Merlin’s, and the other inline racer is a Yak-3 powered by an American Allison engine.

@@Voodoo1650 Thankyou for reply I can imagine the highly modified being exactly that.

@soaringtractor Heat

andytothesky VP Racing fuels is what they’ve been using for years, the top unlimited racers use the 160 octane blend..... some teams add a fuel additive on top of that to boosts the octane even higher.

Voodoo1650 thank you!

I think you're missing the point of the races. And nothing can compare to a pack of these planes roaring past you.

Wrong type of wing for the speeds they’re going, maybe the Spiteful with its newer designed laminar flow wing.

@@Voodoo1650 the literal purpose of the spitfire was to be fast and capable, by the end of the war the only aircraft that could outrun the spitfire was the spiteful, mosquito, me262, meteor, and the seafire, a spitfire would dominate this race, even if it wasn’t fast enough it’s Manoeuverability and it’s ability to climb and dive for speed, would’ve given it the edge

@@Voodoo1650 like maybe im missing something in the fact that that looks like a modified p-51, and in basically every way the spitfire was the better fighter

And white lightning

Dago red was my fav too

@@mothzy1077 what are you talking about?

That will probably never happen again unfortunately

And Galloping Ghost

Music to young ears too!!!

BACn EGGz glad you like it!

really what a loss

airailimages 🤩⚒💎

it gives me chills every time i hear those planes scream around the track at full power

I feel the same.

............sound going away, incredible

Yea rich mans flying fuckin hot rod... gives old rich pricks hard dicks again!

Th3Gr33k...Noise? Nah... that's sweet music.

X2

Thank you!

yeah that was low AF

What happened with Voodoo? Not a lot of info on why they retired her?

​@@Th3Gr33k I think there's a few reasons why Voodoo was retired, but the most decisive one was the owner's choice to put air racing in the rearview. He'd been putting a lot of money and effort throughout the years, and figured it was time to "hang it up." Other reasons include the decline of competition in the unlimited class, purse money being less and less every year, and focus on other endeavors such as the world speed record. I wasn't there for the record run, so this is pure outside-looking-in speculation, but it seemed like the record run straight into Reno really took a lot out of the team. As for what's happened to the airplane, it's kept in good shape at Planes of Fame in Chino. Thankfully, it's staying in its racing configuration, and Stevo still flies it in airshows and air race demos. It's been "retired" before, so I'll never say never when it comes to it seeing the course again, but seeing as the owner still has the race engines, I'd say it'd be up to him if it were to ever race again.

@@Pylon5Productions Cheers for the reply! It's a shame that it seems to be in decline. Seems I'm just a little too young to have seen the hayday of a lot of sports and Reno is certainly one of them. Glad that there are some great archive footage. I'm hopeful that Reno can survive all the current crazy.

@@Pylon5Productions Unfortunately I'm over in the UK. Getting over there isn't really a realistic option right now. I'm hopeful that one day, which is a bit of a "next year" sentiment, but I think I can be excused a little ha ha.

Yep, the Yak was a speed bump on the course , had no business in the Gold class.

Bill...what is Hinton working with his left hand in the corner of the instrument panel, at the end of the video?

@@88mike42 pumping the throttle

bob dyer This engine was Voodoo’s backup race engine after the record run engine and it wasn’t making the same top end power that we wanted by Sunday, plus as you can see from the landing the carburetor wasn’t happy, so we’re lucky she lasted till the end of the race. She was still hauling ass though😀. The engine was still in good shape after the race and all it needed was a carburetor swap and she flew home on Tuesday.

jrfoleyjr There was a highly modified Corsair that the Planes of Fame folks campaigned for several years back in the 80's and early 90's until it crashed in 94, It was fast but would not compete against today's top Gold racers. Look up Planes of Fame Super Corsair, there's tons of pics and some videos.

racketman2u Each team has the crew on the ground that informs the pilots where the other planes are in relation. Also, both Strega and Voodoo have telemetry that the crew on the ground monitors during the race so the pilot can focus outside of the cockpit.

Not necessarily from the Ghost, but yes, the FAA has a minimum distance from the crowd that the planes can race.

andytothesky The race engine in Voodoo was putting out around 3,800hp in top form!

Voodoo1650 wow that’s insane, from a Packard Merlin too!

Lancelot Lalla Coming down the chute they're 500+ mph, then once on the course they were running in the high 480's, plus having to work around planes that were 100 mph slower.

soaringtractor _____ Fuck off Wilbur.

NZ Aviation Well, I was on the Voodoo crew so I focused more on her because of that.

@D Lopez I believe you nailed it. Exactly. But RARA doesn't seem to understand what the "True" enthusiasts want to see. We "enjoy" a bunch of rich guys flying their jets around the pylon's. And the formula one class is very nice, but take away the big boys...I'm. gone. Hawker Sea furies are sweet, but they are not the drug we come for. I'm done.

X2

They can if needed, but they are mostly just focusing on their line around the pylons, and monitoring their instruments. They have the crew on comms letting them know their position around the other planes, which is usually limited to telling the pilot how many seconds in front, or behind the other racers they are.

The first Mustang with a Griffon was the 'Red Baron' from the late 70's, and it once held the world speed record for propeller driven, piston engine aircraft at 599mph, the last one to fly was this one ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vpki2tKlSgQ.html.

There wasn't a whole lot of top end gold racers this year so some of the planes bumped up from the slower races, this definitely makes it challenging to navigate the course and have to pass other planes that are over 100 mph slower.

The Yak was practically run over out there, lapped twice ! To me a very dangerous situation just to serve a purpose of having a full 7 racers on the course for the sake of the show. Plus it was a rookie pilot being passed by aircraft going over 130 mph faster...more or less a speed bump on the course. The whole point of having Gold, Silver and Bronze racing classes thrown out the window, wrong time for someone out there doing a parade Lap while 2 P-51's are rocking the world....the closest thing you will ever see to WWII air combat .

Clarence Dela Cruz _____ They aren't. Most, if not all, have been completely rebuilt and reconfigured for racing. Hardly a single original rivet remains.

Daren Maloy They have pretty much blocked off all roads in and around the race course unfortunately.

@@Voodoo1650 thank you for the information