Leg #7 - Pushing south to Borger...temperature rising...

It's hot...the thermals are building...more headwinds. We're not looking forward to this leg, as it will do us no favors for our race times. But it's Thursday, and we need to be in Mobile tomorrow. So we need to push on. We thank our hosts, pay our fuel bill and launch out of Great Bend - fly by to continue...it's on to Borger TX.

 It's going to be a slow, bumpy ride south. The land gets flatter and more barren. It's a stark contrast to the lush green terrain in the Dakotas and Wyoming. That's one of the highlights of any Air Race Classic - flying over so many States and taking in the geography across the expanse of our country. Texas is in the midst of a real drought, but we manage to fly by an isolated rain shower.

Clearly, irrigation is a real necessity for any crop production in this region. Talk about a crop circles!!!

Keeping an eye out for obstacles...close tracking on the sectionals and the GPS...Charissa's acclimating to a different style of flying.

This leg proves to be a little monotonous. We're tired, and the conditions add to our fatigue level. While we'd like to push on to Norman OK yet today, we know that Borger will be our RON (Remain OverNight) stop. We'd need a quick turnaround in Borger to make it to OUN before sunset. Neither of us is ready for that push.

So we plan the fly-by. We're calling out our positions along the route, hoping to hear from the other teams in our little pack. We hear Maureen and Barb, the Cherokee Chicks, once, but it's otherwise quiet on the air-to-air freq. We are looking for the airport but can't seem to pinpoint it. We know that it's at our 12 o'clock. Looking, looking. We keep picking out clearings, but no runways. It's deceptive. Finally, we get a lock on it, and we set up - 200 ft above ground...lights on...calls to the timers...right of and parallel to Rwy 21...climbing left turn to join the pattern to land. Charissa tunes in the common traffic freq. WHAT??? It should have been in there for the fly-by. ARRGGHH!!! We call our landing pattern, and we get the call asking about our radios. Busted!!! We ask to refly the timing line now that we're on the right freq, but they tell us that the timers got our time (luckily). The bad news is that we'll take a 2 knot penalty on this leg for this error. It's a repeat of an error from 2009, but at least I know that I won't be fighting a "radio failure" DQ from the judges. Gotta shake it off and move on. It's another sign of fatigue. Time to call it a day.

We're drenched in sweat - it's got to be over 100oF. We're sucking down ice cold waters. Debug. Tidy up the plane. There's a young girl, Stevie, with her grandmother, and they're both thrilled to meet and talk with some racers. Stevie is just wide-eyed with meeting us - another special moment on these races when you know that you're making an impact with a young girl. I decide to give her one of our Rawlins baseball caps. I explain to her that we're the only racers to get these hats and that now she's got this special piece of memorabilia from the 2011 ARC. She is really tickled with that and the ARC Program book that I give her. It's a great way to end the Day 3. Again, we meet up with Karen and Patti (Classic 35), and Patti offers us a free hotel stay on her "points". We take the crew car with them, head out for a nice Mexican dinner at The Plaza, and then off to the hotel for the night.