Red Bull San Diego- part 4- the winners!

[beaky]

Well, it was a terrific race. No accidents, the rookies trashed a couple of pylons without mishap, and the first three places were gained by heartbeats. Exciting stuff.

I hung around to watch the 1st, 2nd and 3rd-place winners wallow in their victories, and take a few snaps.

It wouldn't be a proper winners' circle without some lovely ladies to greet them... any moment now, the helicopter will be bringing the boys back from Brown Field.

Take your time, guys... this works juust fine...

     


From left to right: current world champ Kirby Chambliss (USA, 2nd place),  Paul Bonhomme (UK, 1st place), and Nigel Lamb (UK, 3rd place). It looks like Chambliss is wondering what the Brits are saying amongst themselves... funny captions, anyone?

     


It was also Bonhomme's birthday... one of the MCs led the crowd in a heartfelt rendition of my least favorite song in the world: "Happy Birthday to You".
What an awesome birthday for Bonhomme... !!

     


The girls presented magnums of champagne, and all hell broke loose!
Congratulations, gentlemen- good race!!

[Mobius]

I think I want to be a Red Bull Air-racer now... 8-)

[a1]

that first one

I want to race now too.

[Willit Run]

O.K. I see the winners in the first shot but, who are the rest of the people in the other shots?  :D

Great shots, Sean!!

[Hagar]

Well, it was a terrific race. No accidents, the rookies trashed a couple of pylons without mishap, and the first three places were gained by heartbeats. Exciting stuff.

I hung around to watch the 1st, 2nd and 3rd-place winners wallow in their victories, and take a few snaps.

It wouldn't be a proper winners' circle without some lovely ladies to greet them... any moment now, the helicopter will be bringing the boys back from Brown Field.

Take your time, guys... this works juust fine...

That's more like it!

Paul Bonhomme (UK, 1st place),

I was going to ask about him. A fantastic display pilot. We missed the Red Bull Matadors at Shoreham this year. Now I know why. http://www.redbull.co.uk/en/ArticlePage.1133435915801-523157728/htmlArticlePage.action

[Roughrider]

[quote]O.K. I see the winners in the first shot but, who are the rest of the people in the other shots?

[beaky]

I was going to ask about him. A fantastic display pilot. We missed the Red Bull Matadors at Shoreham this year. Now I know why. http://www.redbull.co.uk/en/ArticlePage.1133435915801-523157728/htmlArticlePage.action[/quote]


Mr. Bonhomme flew the hell out of that course Saturday- beat Chambliss by just over a second, which is a healthy margin in this kind of racing.  Well done!  8-)

[Aerophile]

ok, here's your "funny captions" for #2 right off the top of my head...

"Is that American chap still looking at my a__?"  

"haha, look at the poor bast___.  We've got more trophies than the Americans do."

"Now Nige, I know you want to trash talk the Yankee, but now is not the time to do it ol' chap."

Now that that is out of my system, looks like it was quite a race.  They really did fly the hell out of those planes.  Thank goodness for YouTube.com, otherwise I wouldn't have seen any of it.  Thanks for sharing the pics... especially the first one  ;)