Pilot wins championship in Nemesis NXT
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press, Wednesday, September 17, 2008.
By ALLISON GATLIN Valley Press Staff Writer
RENO, Nev. - The Reno National Championship Air Races ended in a familiar manner Sunday, with Mojave pilot Jon Sharp finishing on top and posting record speeds on the way.
Flying his Nemesis NXT, Sharp claimed the Gold championship for the super sport class with an average speed of 392 mph in the final race.
That was actually a little slower than his record-setting speed of 393 mph for an earlier heat, and well behind the blistering record of 409 mph he set in his qualifying run on Sept. 10.
Sharp finished 24 mph faster than the second-place finisher in his final race, and almost 56 mph faster than the other Nemesis NXT aircraft in the race.
"The plane was awesome," Sharp said. "
It was just an amazing week for us."
The sport class, in which Sharp's Nemesis NXT competes, has two divisions, sport and super sport.
The super sport airplanes have larger engines and are allowed to use enhancements to improve performance.
Sharp is no stranger to the winner's circle in Reno.
With his original Nemesis, he dominated Formula One air racing during the 1990s, setting 16 world speed records and winning 47 of 51 races.
With that Nemesis residing in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Sharp and his wife and partner, Patricia, turned to the newly created sport class and designed Nemesis' successor, Nemesis NXT.
The new aircraft debuted at Reno in 2004, but mishaps that year and the next kept Jon Sharp out of the winner's circle.
However, he claimed the top prize at 360 mph in 2006 after the race leader was docked time for cutting one of the racing pylons that mark the course.
Last year, he secured the top prize in his class with a record speed of more than 385 mph. He set two other records during that week of racing: a qualifying record of 386.9 mph and a heat race record of 384.7 mph.
Earlier this summer, Sharp continued his assault on the record books at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2008 in Oshkosh, Wis.
There, he set a world record for the airplane's category over a three-kilometer straight course with an average speed of 356 mph "and some change."