So near and yet …

Here’s how our final race unfolded, from the moment we landed in Texas. We went into the race with more effort than normal, by arriving at the venue 10 days before to get into time zone, do some training, some relaxing, and some team bonding. We had an additional team member, the first race this year where four grew to five in the hangar and stacked the deck in our favour to win.

All week the race media asked about our plan and we repeated over and over again that it was to go out and win the race. That we could not control what the other two teams in contention would do, so we would just do what we could to win a first air race title for Australia.

After nine days of testing, getting comfortable in our surrounds, practice and qualifying, race day arrived. We felt good as a team.

Race day brought with it a significant change in conditions from where the track had been a day prior during qualifying. The wind had changed direction and we knew it would lead to some pylon hits and also some potential ‘Over G’ (exceeding 12G) situations.

Changes like this make the first pilots in the race the pioneers for everyone else. As it happened, we were in the first heat of the day and flying against Canadian Pete McLeod. He would be first in the track so we had to beat his time to progress to the next stage of the day. I also didn’t have the normal advantage of knowing if the time Pete flew was good or not. The conditions had changed so much that his time gave me no clear reference. There was no point listening on the radio to Pete’s time.

I had to just focus on my race plan, win each round and shoot for the world championship. As Pete exited his run, Race Director Jim DiMatteo informed my first-round rival that his time included a three-second penalty for a pylon hit. All of a sudden it didn’t matter if Pete’s time was good or not, I just needed to be clean and errorfree in the track. Three seconds in our world is like being 30 points down in a game of rugby.

I hit my marks, didn’t push too hard or slow down too much and progressed to the second-stage Round of 8, as planned.

We then came to the Round of 8 I was up against Spaniard Juan Velarde who had been flying well all week and had just set a blistering time in the Round of 14 that knocked out 2016 world champion Matthias Dolderer of Germany.

I was to fly first this time around and Juan would have an advantage in knowing my time and what he had to beat. All I could do was go back to our plan and fly to win, hopefully putting enough pressure on him with my time that he might make an error. I set a clean and fast time and, as hoped, it was good enough to beat Juan. The result sent me to the Final 4.

Meanwhile Goulian had been eliminated in the Round of 8, by Šonka who progressed into the Final 4 with me. Now Goulian was the mathematical chance at the title and we had rocketed into strong contention, with only Martin Šonka in our way.

How fast the air race game can change.

With approximately five minutes on the ground to refuel and have a quick debrief as a team between the Round of 8 and Final 4, there was little time to process what had happened between Mike and Martin. All we knew was that Martin was still in the race with us and that meant all we had to do was beat him in the Final 4 and the title was ours.

However, Goulian remained the joker in the pack. If I finished fourth, he could still beat me to second in the championship and the only way to solve that issue, and the issue of beating Martin, was to win the race. As I taxied out for takeoff, Kirby was in the track. My tactician Pete had told me the guys were putting some pretty quick times in, and Kirby had posted a time that was a good second faster than me in the Round of 8 so I needed to pull out the stops.

I watched Kirby’s time on the big screen as I lined up to take off, and his time was slower than my Round of 8 time. I figured either the track was slowing down, or his engine was getting hot. Either way, I knew I could beat him if I flew hard and clean.

I took off and went to the hold while Ben flew. I heard his time as he came out of the track, and he was slower than Kirby. I knew I had a shot at winning the race.

Win the race, win the championship. Win the race, win the championship.

Next up it was my turn, and I went into what I thought was a track that was slowing with the objective of flying to win. I needed to balance the of penalty while flying the fastest line and closest to the G margin as possible. I enjoyed the flight, and when I came out of the track Jimmy read my time – my fastest of the day. I was very satisfied with that. I had given it my best and put myself into first place and only Martin was left to fly. The pressure was now on him.

‘It was over, I had lost the world championship.’

I went to the cool down hold, waited and watched. I watched Martin enter the track, I watched him fly around the track, and I watched him exit the track. I had no indications from where I was as to what his time was. It would be a matter of seconds from when Martin exited the track to when Jimmy would read out his time and it was a radio transmission that would tell me if I was the world champion or not.

My time was a 53.100. Jimmy’s voice broke through my headset as he read Martin his time, for me it was like it was in slow motion, and so slow that I heard his time of 52.796 extremely clearly. It was over, I had lost the world championship for a third time, and it was by just over 0.3 of a second.

This time though, as a team, it felt different to the other two times we were runner up – in 2015 and 2016.

In 2015 I lost to British ace Paul Bonhomme – now a commentator after a career that saw him win 19 races and three world titles. That year it was my first time to be really in the chase for the World Championship, and I felt it may have been my one and only chance. I was living the year in a dream, and disappointed when it ended.

When I lost to Matthias Dolderer in 2016, I felt we belonged at the top though we had battled a neck injury for the first half of the year and only started our real comeback in the second half. Our team started that second half from eighth position, so it was a good comeback and always an outside chance.

When I lost to Martin this year, I once again felt we belonged at this end of the field. There were a few disappointing races for us, but the Fort Worth race was not one of them. We did not lose the World Championship at Fort Worth, rather Martin won it at Fort Worth. But we know we belong in the race, and we are looking forward to the opportunity to once again battle for the number one position in 2019.

Stay tuned.
Smoke on….