Warbird Information Exchange

I was watching a video of Dago Red from the Reno Air Races of 2003. Dago Red was really fast 15 years ago. What has become of this airplane is it still more or less in racing trim? Also Skip Holm the pilot of Dago Red is he still active in the warbird world or is he retired from flying high performance aircraft? I don't think that the record that Dago Red set in 2003 of 507.00 M.P.H. average at Reno as been broken to this day. Looks like this aircraft would be a Super Mustang in the Racing World.

The short answer is that it is diassembled and in pieces. The current owner is a former crewman who has apparently said that he would like her rebuilt as a racer, but there's been no word for several years. Much of what made her the dominant Racer 15 years ago is gone, and we'd be looking at megabucks to get her anywhere near what she once was.

The long answer is REALLY long, involved and sometimes ugly. I'm not going to get into it here. If you were to go to AAFO.com and enter the aircraft name into the search function you could find out a lot.

I think it unlikely that we will see her again anytime soon. It's all a real shame -- she was lovely, very fast, and had some of the great names in Air Race history associated with her over the years. A real loss...

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Dago Red

For me her best pure look was when she was new in 1982 in her three color scheme. Her configuration represented the ultimate continuation of the shape that had been developed at Reno since 1969. Perhaps the first profile that was close was Bardahl II, N335 and her checker scheme was simply stunning. The next one was N7715C Miss RJ, and "the" look continued to be refined in 1975 with Miss Foxy Lady/Sumthin Else. Dago Red was constructed in Shafter and she was based in Chino in the early years. She won Reno 82' her first time out, beat the radials, and took the mantle of top Mustang from the beautiful Jeannie. Later one year, I remember walking around her all by myself, no ropes, as a 13 year old at the Tustin Helicopter Station when she was there for some reason around that time. Using the standard flip top canopy seen on Mustangs of the times, the canopy could not be opened in flight. This was starkly visible during 1984 when she was expertly handled by Rick Brickert after a dangerous engine that could have been fatal for both pilot and aircraft. She got the RB-51 canopy design by 86 with Alan Preston, and this allowed the canopy to be opened in flight at lower speeds. When Strega was built in Shafter, she called a "Dago Clone", and in fact any similar Mustangs that followed paid a great complement to Dago as their progenitor. I never saw a more beautiful shape when she first flashed over my house in 1983, and I have never forgotten her either. Certainly being from local Chino helped that infatuation, and she always looked a champion. Dago Red, perhaps like all great racing machines fell into several periods during her life where the tremendous and unrecoverable expense of maintaining her in racing trim and staying competitive forced her dormancy. In any case the records and memories and photographs from 1982-2001 are all we have of this amazing time. Most of the great racers are now something else, and the days of people breaking engines for sport are over. Its all become too precious. Hopefully she will be restored someday to her 1982 configuration, and shown for what she became.

Truly a lovely Lady (though like many lovely Ladies she could be a real bi##h when she felt like it!). I photographed her and her consorts at every race she ever ran in. If there's any interest I'll dig up some photos and post them. She gave me some wonderful memories over the quarter century of her active life...

And I agree that she never looked better than when she first arrived on the Stead ramp in 1982 -- before that elegant paint scheme was covered in lettering.

A stock Mustang will fly Reno at about 360 mph or so at takeoff power -- and probably will not run a whole race at that speed without massive overheating. Dago was in the 440 mph range right out of the box in 1982, and by 2000 was pushing 500 mph pretty reliably. That is quite an accomplishment.

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Yes please

Would love to see a racer decked out in the Bardahl scheme again...

Retro Reno Racing!!!

I too liked the earlier Dago Red colors, before the kelp down the sides.


The answer to this question is always yes please!

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remember the Oogahonk!
old school enthusiast of Civiltary Warbirds and Air Racers

OK then -- Here's The Princess as she first appeared at her first Reno. In something under 6 months during 1982 she was turned from a twisted burned out hulk (she had crashed into a house in Concord CA if I recall correctly) into this. The paint was barely dry when she arrived and I believe she'd never been run at over takeoff power. Qualifying speed was around 440 mph.

Pilot -- Ron Hevle
Engine by Mike Nixon.




R82----NN--379- by Neal Nurmi, on Flickr

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Did the race trailer & tug end up at the same place?

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Those who possess real knowledge are rare.

Those who can set that knowledge into motion in the physical world are rarer still.

The few who possess real knowledge and can set it into motion of their own hands are the rarest of all.

After winning in 1982, she had several years of struggle. She was usually the fastest airplane in the field, but one malady or another always knocked her out of the running. She always looked and sounded wonderful though.

This was Reno 1985, with the late Rick Brickert driving. Photo shot out on the old pylon 4. That was a great place to work -- the new race course has nothing quite like it.


R85-----NN--362- by Neal Nurmi, on Flickr

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

In this case yes. The towing accident happened some years later...

_________________
Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

My dear friend Bill Kerchenfaut was crew chief during Dago's real glory years -- from 1998 to 2004. Kerch was a very strong believer in flying each morning at dawn before festivities begin. This got the crew and pilot into race mode and mood, and gave some assurance that the Racer had not gotten into a bad mood overnight -- like I said she could be a real bitch if you didn't give her the right sort of attention. Here we are just before dawn -- the incomparable Skip Holm in the office.




R03--First-Monday-i-Dawn-Patrol--NN--490- by Neal Nurmi, on Flickr

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

And finally the end of the line. For a period around 2006 to 2008 another friend -- Dan Martin -- had a chance to chase the dream by leasing The Princess. Mike Barrow provided a truly monster Sparrowhawk Allison rod motor. Dan and Mike collaborated in developing a new set of blower gears -- ratios somewhere between -7 and -9 gearing to harness the torque production of that motor. Dan spent something like 30 grand on custom nose case gearing -- significantly longer than the .420 transport gears that had been thought to be the longest that would work. It was an amazing package -- but just as it was finally all coming together the airplane was literally pulled out of Dan's hangar, trucked away, and disassembled. Dan had only a lease on the airplane, and the airplane was sold to a new owner with plans that did not include Dan Martin or Mike Barrow.

That was a really sad moment for the sport of airplane racing...

The motor and expertise did go into Dan's daily driver stock airframe P-51 the next year, though, and ran at speeds of up to 490 mph! With a stock canopy and gun blisters in the wings! That was truly something to behold, and left a lot of us wondering what could have been done if Dan and Mike had just had one more year with the Princess.


_PRN4137 by Neal Nurmi, on Flickr

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

accidental duplicate post.

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Great info. How much horsepower do you think that engine was producing at it's peak? Did those guys go on to do some work for Jimmy Leeward and "the Galloping Ghost?" . Who tweaked Galloping Ghost? I know it was nearly as faast when Jimmy bought it several years before. Last, If Dago Red could've reached it's full potential, would it have had the same potetial for structural failure problems as Galloping Ghost?