Sunday, June 22, 2014

Classic racer 4 poem (we had a lot of time in the airplane)

The 2014 air race started off grand, we flew exactly what we had planned. 

On the first leg we flew past Mt. Shasta, which only made us want to go fasta! 

Klamath to Elko was really interesting to fly, the visibility got low but we kept our spirits high. 

On the way to pinedale we saw a lot of snow, some was on the mountains and some was fall slow. 

Day two brought clouds, precipitation and the cold, onto Scottsbluff it's time to be bold. 

The bugs were so terrible in Norfolk, Nebraska, it was so hot and humid we wish we were in Alaska. 

After a long day of flying, we called it a night, in Iowa City we slept really tight. 

The next morning we took off at the crack of dawn, we wanted to make a quick turn in Danville and fly on. 

On the way to Ohio the scenery looked the same, no offense Ohio, it was pretty lame. 

On the way to Pennsilvania we were eager to get done, it was time to meet friends and family and have some more fun. 

We got to the end on the third day, "Where is the bathroom?" was all we could say. 

We laughed a lot and flew our own race, we couldn't be more proud and happy with how we placed. 

Our teamwork was bonding, the memories forever, thanks to all our supporters you couldn't have been better! 

Top ten!

It was a great day and we actually flew our airplane yesterday. We did a few low approaches for our support group including Claire who flew out to see us. 


The banquet last night was a lot of fun and we finally got our results. We placed 10th overall and 4th collegiate. 


The race was very challenging this year and a lot of teams didn't make it to the finish line in time. We are very happy that we made it to the terminus safely and with a top ten finish. We flew our own race and wouldn't have done in any other way. 


A huge thank you goes out to Ryan Albrecht for looking at the weather with us every step of the way. 

We had a big group supporting us at the banquet last night and we would like to say thank you to everyone who came out. 

Our flight department chair Jerry Kidrick came out to both the start and the end who has our back no matter what. 


It was also great to see Frank and Debbie Ayers at the start as well as our ERAU air race girls Hanna, Krystal and Anna. 


We couldn't have flown this race without our amazing ground crew in Prescott including our maintenance team.

It's been a stressful and tiring advanture but we had the time of our lives, gained a lot of experience and are so proud of our Top ten finish. 

Thank you to all of our followers before, during, and after the race. It means a lot to us that we have such a huge support group from all over the world. 

We are now on our way to drop off the plane in Aurora, IL. This plane is not going back to ERAU because we are getting brand new Cessnas. 


We will soon be starting our preparations for next years race as well as our ERAU air race classic in 2016 which starts in Prescott, AZ and ends in Daytona Beach, FL.
 
See you next year :) 
Thank you, 
Kristin Garcia and Marlene Wessel 




Friday, June 20, 2014

Harrisburg, PA

As we are waiting for the results we explored Harrisburg and Hershey with Ernie. 


We will get the final results tomorrow night at the banquet but our airplane got inspected this morning and we have no penalties which is a great sign. I will update the blog as soon as possible tomorrow night. Fingers crossed! 


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Day 3

Every night before we went to bed we looked at the weather to see what the next day will bring. We saw that the weather did not look good for Thursday so we decided to get up really early and push all the way through to the end.


We taxied out right after sunrise to avoid some incoming weather and we flew our best leg of the race with strong tailwinds. 


We did very quick turns in Danville, IL and Athens, OH where we fueled up quickly, cleaned the plane, got some water, filled up oil and preflighted for the next leg. 


We finally made it to New Cumberland, PA and couldn't be happier. The last three days were tough, exhausting and stressful but we had the best time, laughed a lot and are very proud of flying our own race. 


Now it's time for lots of rest and spending the next few days with family and friends while we wait for the results. 






Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Day 2


We had a good day of progress today and flew another three legs. We made it safely to Iowa city. 


Our day started of in rainy pinedale, Wyoming and it was so cold we were wishing for warmer weather which we soon regretted as we made our way into Nebraska and Iowa. 


It got hot and humid very quickly and our main goal was to stay hydrated and even Ernie needed some water. 



We are pretty tired today but very happy with our choices of flying our own safe and clean race. 


Monday, June 16, 2014

Day 1

We had a great day of racing and are very happy with our performance today. On the first leg we had to fight some headwinds but the next two legs made up for that. We made it safely to Pinedale, Wyoming. 








Thank you for following us. 

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Big Day!

Today we received a lot of information for the race that we would like to share with you.

1. You can track us and see where we are on our journey to New Cumberland, PA.  http://trackleaders.com/arc14

2. We finally found out what our handicap speed is. (the speed that we have to beat during the race)
126 knots (always the fastest Cessna competing)

3. We have completed all our meetings and are ready to compete tomorrow. The planes are fueled up and we are getting ready for a good night of sleep. 




Keep checking back for updates! Thank you for all of your support!

Happy Father's Day!!!


Saturday, June 14, 2014

Start Banquet

Today started with endless meetings about the race rules and common sense which put us to sleep pretty quickly. 


After the long hours of meetings we had a great time at the take off banquet. We had a huge support group tonight and couldn't be more excited to represent our University. Thank you to everyone who came out. 



Welcome to Ernie who has decided to support us in the cockpit this year :) 



Only one more day until takeoff. Getting nervous and excited for this crazy adventure to finally start. 

Friday, June 13, 2014

Welcome BBQ

We had an easy day of relaxing and were charging up our energy for the upcoming days. Tonight we had a cocktail hour which was a great way to meet other racers and the welcome BBQ was a lot of fun. 



We are excited to see the Ayers tomorrow and hope they have a safe flight up here. The air race meetings are starting tomorrow followed by the Take Off Banquet. We will have a strong attendance which includes the Ayers, Jerry Kidrick, Anna Chrzanowski, Hannah Rooney, Krystal Megha and of course our pilots Kristin Garcia and Marlene Wessel. 

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Credential check and airplane inspection DONE!




Our airplane was inspected as well as our credentials and passed. It's starting to set in that we are only a few days away from takeoff. We are so excited and can't wait to race across the country. 

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Exploring San Francisco

Exploring San Francisco! 









Had an awesome day in downtown San Francisco! We rented a tandem bike and rode from pier 39 to the Golden Gate Bridge over to Sausalito and took a ferry back across! Saw so much of the city. It was a great day of team building and bonding. 


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

We made it to Concord, CA

We had a great time working our way to Concord, CA. We hit up a few stops along the air race route for some practice. The scenery was absolutely beautiful.








We are confident and excited to start the race but for now happy to have a few days of down time. Exploring San Francisco is our plan for tomorrow.