Graeme Frew works on his Yak-3’s Allison engine at Reno. Starting at the back of the field as a rookie with no qualifying time, he worked his way up to compete in the Unlimited Gold race, the absolute peak of all such competition.
As prefaced in last month’s NZ Aviation News (page 3), Graeme Frew competed as a rookie in the Unlimited class at the 2017 National Championship Air Races at Stead Field, Reno, Nevada, over the week 13–17 September, flying his Yak-3 ZK-VVS Full Noise wearing Burt Munro’s race number #35.
And what a rookie debut it was! Graeme completed his star turn in the Unlimited Gold final on the Sunday afternoon as the seventh fastest unlimited racer at Reno.
His week at Reno had not started well, with the sponsored special race engine not performing to expectations and even necessitating a precautionary Mayday landing when oil pressure dropped during a practice run.
The decision was made to re-install Graeme’s original Allison engine, achieved in a marathon all-night session taking 18hr instead of the normal three days. Graeme was full of praise for his team and he also had much help from other teams at Reno, including the Australian Drop Bear L-39 jet racing team which loaned its hangar for the Tuesday night engine change and the Sea Fury Argonaut team with the loan of its tug.
Graeme reckoned that they were emulating Burt Munro who also had to overcome his own problems at Bonneville Salt Flats before succeeding as the World’s Fastest Indian.
Not having posted a qualifying time, Graeme and Full Noise started the Reno campaign in 18th and last place in the Unlimited class on Thursday. However, things were soon looking up as Graeme won his first Bronze class heat with a speed of 308.8mph, beating a field of six which included a Spitfire Mk IX, a P-40E Warhawk, a Wildcat, a Corsair and a couple of Mustangs. Not a bad way to start your Reno racing career—with a win!
The way that things work at Reno, Graeme was promoted to the Silver class where he placed fourth on the Friday and won again on the Saturday! This time, as Graeme said, he “smoked” a field of five other racing Mustangs at an average speed of 345.2mph to gain a narrow victory. That led to his promotion to the Gold class final on the Sunday.
I doubt if there has ever been such a spectacular story as the little rookie team from New Zealand that made it to the pinnacle of unlimited air racing at the undisputed home of such competition. This was a major achievement not picked up by the local mainstream media until after the event, but those in the aviation community are immensely proud of the success of Graeme and Full Noise.
The field for the Gold race final comprised the two super-modified racing Mustangs Voodoo and Strega, plus the four Sea Furies Dreadnought, Sawbones, Argonaut and 924. Graeme in Full Noise came in seventh in this classy field with the race narrowly won by James Consalvi in Strega at an average speed of 481.3mph, the Mustangs lapping the rest of the field.
And to top off a great week, Graeme was awarded the Unlimited Rookie of the Year award at the post race celebrations.
Congratulations to Graeme Frew and Full Noise for doing New Zealand proud and for sharing it with us all.
- Report by Keith Morris, photographs sourced from Wikipedia.