Looking back at this weekend’s Red Bull Air Race at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, TX, it can be described in a few words: teamwork, determination, collaboration and focus. With the return of the air race to the US, it was a great feeling to be competing back on US soil where everything is familiar and focusing on racing was easier than ever.

After Friday’s practice run paving the way to issues with the Edge’s landing gear among other things, our team worked very hard to remedy the issues. With the incredible help of some of the other race team’s technicians and their generous offer with parts, we were able to race in the Qualifying round on Saturday. It was not clear until Saturday morning whether Team #99 would be able to race.  The team pulled off maintenance issues that would normally have taken a week to complete – in less than 24 hours. If you were watching, you may have noticed Michael’s Qualifying (and Training) run on Saturday was completed without wheel pants, which led to a slower time – but enabled the team to place for Sunday’s Round of 14 head-to-head competition against Canadian Pete McLeod.

On Sunday, Michael had to put the technical problems that had been the center of the team’s attention most of the weekend, away and focus on a fast time in the track. After Sunday’s Round of 14 against Pete McLeod, Michael reflected that “When you fly against Pete you either have to go big or go home. Pete can be really fast, but he also can make some mistakes. My job was to put some pressure on him and try to fly fast. We analyzed the lines all week and we flew the fastest all week on Saturday with a 57.307 second run – so we were happy with what we flew, but it was not fast enough.”

Thanks always to our incredible team for coming together to overcome the never ending challenges that racing presents. We are looking forward to a great race in Las Vegas in two weeks.