In Sept 2025
https://airrace.org/news/national-championship-air-races-take-off-for-roswell-nm-in-2025/
In reply to L5wolvesf :
I was just in Roswell about 3 weeks ago and they had posters up all over downtown.
I definitely want to see an air race in person before they are gone forever.
Glad to hear the air races won't disappear forever, not just yet, anyway.
Reno was on the bucket list, but never made it. Roswell is less than half the distance, so it's a real possibility.
In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
You are close – just do it.
Me and my guys went in the 70s. Back then they had a WWII dogfight / bombing run reenactment. It was great and affordable and we had a blast. Time and money have kept me away.
I’m gonna see if we can do a 2025 road trip.
It's going to be a big boon for Roswell. I wonder if they really have enough hotel space for the event though. It looks like it's a good 3 hour drive from Albuquerque, so that's not a viable option to stay at (realistically). There appears to be very limited (regional) commercial flights to Rosewell. There does not even appear to be any sort of terminal (?). I would guess they would bump up service for the event?
I would be curious about the course also. As you can see below, the airport already has houses to the north, east and south (housing is naturally attracted to airports for some reason), so I guess it's going to be out to the west. It could be entirely to the west, but that is not ideal safety wise (give far fewer emergency landing options. The airport itself is way to small for unlimiteds, sports and jets. It would be very tight. They will obviously need some grandstands (not a huge deal).
The airport is currently a storage graveyard for airliners.... which would mean.... maybe a good place for.... airliner races!!!
Of note is that RARA made a CRAP load of money off the last Reno race because of the massive attendance, so they should have the capital to make something happen. I think RARA also owns some of the land around Stead in Reno (?), from trying to keep people from building under the course.
Definitely a "see it if you can" kind of thing. Sports and such are fun, but if you can get to experience a Merlin at 120 inches of boost, spinning withing an inch of it's life... it's a thing...
I hope for the best. Reno certainly doesn't want it anymore.
I lived in Roswell from 1980-1999. When I left, we had a terminal, so I assume it's still there. On size, back in the late 1940s when it was Walker AFB, they flew B-36s with liv e nuclear weapons. Don't get me started on UFOs. I remember that it was listed as an emergency landing site for the space shuttle in the program's early days (one early flight actually landed at White Sands Missile Range to the west). Until recently they ran drag races at the facility, don't know if they still do. We used to have a very nice air show there in the mid-90s, with the Thunderbirds the featured act. One year we had an F-117 flown in from Alamogordo on static display (regular training flights overhead back then, pairs of arrowheads moving almost silently by). the plane was cordoned off and heavily guarded, with "Caution - deadly force authorized beyond this point" tape. I stood next to a Korean War vet who was shaking his head, telling his wife "If I hadn't seen it land I'd swear they had to bring it in on a truck - no way that thing can fly."
In reply to aircooled :
I looked at accommodations (hotels and camping) around Roswell. It looks like large crowds are an . . . alien concept there.Prices could double or triple.
Typical attendance seems to be around 100k+. The county only has 65k with 48k in Roswell.
Do you have any idea how much it cost for general admission recently?
Roswell is about 2:40 from Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock has significant hotel space - unless they schedule the races opposite a Texas Tech football game.
Yeah, it's a boring drive, but it's doable.
An hour and a half to the West of Roswell, Ruidoso, NM has some hotels and resort facilities. We like the Inn of the Mountain Gods for occasional getaways.
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