Air Races moves from Reno to Roswell, NM

[OD/NG]

National Championship Air Races moving to Roswell, New Mexico:

https://airrace.org/news/national-champ ... m-in-2025/

Great for airspace, flying and lack of encroachment, but horrible infrastructure which will not support large crowds.

The lack of hotel rooms is going to be a real challenge, supposedly there are only about 1000 rooms out of 20-something hotels in the city. It's in the middle of nowhere and not easily accessible. People are going to have to camp, RV, or "rough it". 1000 rooms won't even cover the staff, race teams and air race support staff. It will be real interesting to see how they address this very limiting factor.

[Clifford Bossie]

Good. Maybe that can breath some life into an economically depressed area.

[OD/NG]

Good. Maybe that can breath some life into an economically depressed area.

Well, maybe, but......

Everything revolves around money to attract people and planes to the races. Without significant sponsorship, it's going to be very difficult to attract the top racers without large purse/prize monies. Having large purses/prize money is also dependent upon attracting large crowds. Attracting large crowds with virtually no rooms/beds, or significant restaurants nearby and ease of air carrier access is going to be very difficult. There are no large airports with commercial air service nearby. The closest is Lubbock which is just under a 3 hr drive by car.

If they want to make this a success, they really need to convince the top 2 or 3 major air carriers to offer a special yearly charter air service to fly directly into Roswell Airport, for about a 10 to 14 day period to support transporting fans, race teams and support staff.

The bottom line is that this may end up being a small airshow/air race event that doesn't do anybody any good, including "breathing life into an economically depressed area".

I really hope RARA has thought this through.

[Jesse C.]

So, it is either a 13 hour drive from San Diego, CA. Or an almost 6 hour flight at around $400 bucks!

Rooms are cheap at the moment, but I am sure they will over quadruple once you get closer to the race.

So, to go or not to go?

[phil65]

But the booze is cheap, right ?


Phil

[Xray]

People have been predicting this scenario for a while now, tough to have the best of both worlds, and tough to see how they can make it a success.
One must assume that they have a game plan, Roswell has a built in allure in the aviation community, so that is 1 +.

[OD/NG]

So, it is either a 13 hour drive from San Diego, CA. Or an almost 6 hour flight at around $400 bucks!

Rooms are cheap at the moment, but I am sure they will over quadruple once you get closer to the race.

So, to go or not to go?

You better believe that's going to happen! It already happens at other places and will happen here and probably to a greater extent, especially due to the extremely limited supply of hotel rooms in the area. Last year I decided to go to Oshkosh last minute because I didn't think I could get work off to attend. Naturally, all the hotels in the area were almost booked solid. Though they had a few available all were extremely expensive. The Motel 6 in Fond du lac was going for over $2000 a night and other ones were $1500+ for 2 and 3 star hotels that were a 30 to 45 minute drive away. Not wanting to pay that, I ended up staying in Milwaukee. This was about a month out from the start of AirVenture. Because the Roswell area doesn't have a lot of high economic generating events, hotels are salivating at the prospect of getting a lot of money in a short period of time. I think this first year is going to set the tone and determine whether people come back or not. Additionally, word of mouth travels extremely fast. If the Roswell City Council were smart, they would encourage all of the hotels in the area to charge normal or less than normal prices to create a "loss leader" effect, so people will have a good first experience and come back in future years. Combining perceived price gouging with an already undesirable place will ensure that fans won't ever come back. I really hope the Roswell City Council is smart, as they have a chance to set a really good tone or to totally ruin it and ensure fans stay away. They are fighting an uphill battle, so they need to go out of their way to make 2025 the best NCAR event ever.

[JohnB]

OD/NG

What you're suggesting makes too much sense so it's not to happen!

It's not just big name events with price gouging. I recently booked a motel in Hood River, Oregon for the Fly in at the Western Antique Automobile and Airplane Museum.
Three hundred a night at a decent modern, but nothing fancy, place.
If a small event like thsat encourages that kind if pricing (many or most fly-in participants camp with their aircraft) I'd hate to think what a well known, big buck event would prompt.

Small town, limited rooms = high prices.

I'm sure the race organization looked into factors like location and rooms...and not just the suitability of the airport.
It would be interesting to get their reasons for picking Roswell.

Every time I see a.mention of Roswell, they talk about
tacky alien themed tourist traps, so it hasn't been on my "must see" list of destinations.

Last edited by JohnB on Fri May 24, 2024 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Xrayist]

I spent a lot of time traveling around New Mexico. Not much around Roswell. Nearest large city is Albuquerque, about 3 hours away. Only American Airlines flies to Roswell, at least currently. I did Google hotels in Roswell and it said there were 15 hotels. So if each hotel had 100 rooms, then 1500 visitors. Even with 300 rooms per hotel, that leaves space for 4500. Where is everyone else supposed to stay? They could stay in Artesia, Clovis, or maybe Portales, but those are equally small if not smaller than Roswell, with the exception of Portales since ENMU is there.

[Lynn Allen]

My guess is that camper sales are going to exploded there or at least rentals...

[mike furline]

So, it is either a 13 hour drive from San Diego, CA. Or an almost 6 hour flight at around $400 bucks!

Rooms are cheap at the moment, but I am sure they will over quadruple once you get closer to the race.

So, to go or not to go?

You better believe that's going to happen! It already happens at other places and will happen here and probably to a greater extent, especially due to the extremely limited supply of hotel rooms in the area. Last year I decided to go to Oshkosh last minute because I didn't think I could get work off to attend. Naturally, all the hotels in the area were almost booked solid. Though they had a few available all were extremely expensive. The Motel 6 in Fond du lac was going for over $2000 a night and other ones were $1500+ for 2 and 3 star hotels that were a 30 to 45 minute drive away. Not wanting to pay that, I ended up staying in Milwaukee. This was about a month out from the start of AirVenture. Because the Roswell area doesn't have a lot of high economic generating events, hotels are salivating at the prospect of getting a lot of money in a short period of time. I think this first year is going to set the tone and determine whether people come back or not. Additionally, word of mouth travels extremely fast. If the Roswell City Council were smart, they would encourage all of the hotels in the area to charge normal or less than normal prices to create a "loss leader" effect, so people will have a good first experience and come back in future years. Combining perceived price gouging with an already undesirable place will ensure that fans won't ever come back. I really hope the Roswell City Council is smart, as they have a chance to set a really good tone or to totally ruin it and ensure fans stay away. They are fighting an uphill battle, so they need to go out of their way to make 2025 the best NCAR event ever.

Why stop there? Maybe the airshow/race could be free, parking, food, etc., the entire town could take a loss so the Adults over on WIX can attend.

[airnutz]

I wonder how much extra room is available aboard the Alien space ships? Mebbe until we
get enough hotel rooms built, they could hold an intergalactic fly-in....A kinda getting-to-know-you visit in case they aren't particularly thrilled about air racing?

[phil65]

I wonder if they have gotten any commitments from the big names in the aviation racing world to show up ?

Phil

[JohnB]

They must have plans.
There are certainly suitable airfields with empty land nearby that are a lot closer to civilization and amenities.

[Spitty]

If they let the UFO,s enter it would make the Unlimited class more interesting...