The Lancair (kits)
factory people were shocked Sunday morning, when they went to visit
one of their machines, which had been left in the 'secure' hangar,
with the rest of the Sport Class airplanes.
It should have been safe.
Everybody in that class knows everybody else; and besides, you
can count on at least one, and probably several, teams' pulling
all-nighters. So, when the Lancair people came to the hangar, they
were doubly shocked: their 'baby' had been violated.
The cowling was off, and there were a couple drops of oil
beneath the engine, sure signs of 'surgery.' Further inspection
revealed that the machine's pushrods had been 'borrowed.'
More-obviously, its 3-blade Hartzell prop was
gone.
The Lancair folks didn't immediately dial 911, or even have
heart attacks. They knew there had to have been a logical
explanation... or two.
There were.
Darryl Greenamyer's
very special Lancair racer (right) needed those pushrods, and it
was 3AM when they needed them. Hey -- hadn't the Lancair people
said they'd do anything to help? Poof:
six pushrods, gone! (Darryl, as everyone else had
feared, could still go fast enough later on Sunday
to hold off an heroic charge from Rick Vandam's Lancair, to win the
Gold.)
But wait! There's More (or, er, less)!
Dave Morss, who has done his share of flying for Lancair, and
was contending for the Silver after having set his plane up to
cruise to Reno [not the ultimate race beast, with which he was used
to winning -- that machine tragically crashed last
October, taking two of our friends with it, in a 'pilot error'
scenario], found that he couldn't go so very fast.
Part of his setup was an M-T prop, which Dave, we were told, had
figured was going to be better for cruise, and just about as good
for the race, as the Hartzell most of the field used.
[Note: that sign says, "Do NOT Allow Lancairs
to Share Hangars. THEY EAT THEIR OWN"]
As it turned out, that M-T was indeed just fine for
the trip to Reno (bottom photo), but it wasn't the hot
setup for the race. Dave looked at that factory Lancair, and got a
little idea... Poof: Dave's supercharged plane had a
Hartzell on the nose! [We heard that, in the race, he flew
with 7" less manifold pressure... and he went 10mph faster. Fuel
consumption? Hey, he was racing! --ed.]
That brings up another point:
In an earlier article, I mentioned that I had heard from other
Sport Class competitors, especially in the Silver race, that
Dave might have been 'sandbagging,'
because he didn't want to fly against Greenamyer's much-faster
machine. I said that accusation didn't sound right, knowing the
competitive spirit between the earpieces of the headset of
said Mr. Morss. Sure enough, he wasn't sandbagging -- he was
just uncharacteristically, legitimately, slow in
qualifying.
Oh -- he easily won the Silver, at 272.922 mph.
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