BEST OF CHECKMATES

Exclusive from John MacDonald

It’s hard to imagine Roger Federer sitting across a chessboard with Rafael Nadal on the eve of a Grand Slam final. Or Jensen Button figuring out if the English Defence would be the best strategy to see off Rubens Barrichello.

But when fog blanketed Oporto and grounded Red Bull Air Race pilots on practice day, the world championship leaders eased their frustrations over knights and bishops, with not a Red Baron lookalike in sight.

Fortunately for Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmasters now staging a 25th anniversary rematch in neighbouring Spain, they have little to fear from their airborne counterparts.

Red Bull Air Race world champion Hannes Arch cheerfully admitted that he had not played chess since he was a child in Austria when his grandfather showed him the basic moves. And Paul Bonhomme, leading this year’s title race, was little better.

So who won? “Neither of us, really,” laughed Arch. “We had to keep asking the technical crew which pieces could go where and in the end I think we were both left with just kings standing. Call it an honourable draw.”

The chessboard camaraderie masks the fierce rivalry that takes over when the two are in the air. There’s an unmistakable edge to the duel, even if both men are at pains to avoid open hostilities.
“We respect each other… we’d be stupid not to,” says Arch, diplomatically describing their relationship as “competitive colleagues”.

Bonhomme went into the Portugal round leading Arch by one fragile point, and the tension was palpable as the persistent fog ruled out practice flights over the five-kilometre race track set near the mouth of the Douro River. Chess and mental rehearsals helped contain the strain of waiting.

By late afternoon on the second day, the wind changed and the sun burnt off the remaining wisps of fog. Clear for takeoff, but with practice and qualification condensed into one session.

Bonhomme clocked the best time, doubling his championship lead by collecting another point for being top qualifier, with Arch trailing in eighth place. Come race day, both men were on top form, comfortably making it through to the final four. Arch set the time to beat, but Bonhomme – last out – made a faultless and faster run to take the Portugal honours and get one hand on the world title.

With the final round to come in Barcelona, the Englishman only has to finish second to clinch the title. Even if Arch wins qualifying and finishes first, his 13 points will not be enough to overhaul the 10 points that would go Bonhomme’s way as runner-up in Spain.

The slimness of the margin reflects the milliseconds and millimetres that are so crucial in this extraordinarily demanding series, an aerial version of show-jumping in the importance of having a clear round, and akin to slalom skiing in the need to avoid hitting obstacles.

Pilots must negotiate a series of pylons – 20-metre high inflated cones of fabric – at speeds of up to 370 km/h.  Airgates – a pair of pylons set barely a wingspan apart – must be passed without contact, either in level flight or in ‘knife’ mode where the wings are perpendicular.

Single pylons set in sequence constitute the slalom section, flown knife-style before flipping back to level and tackling more airgates within the blink of an eye.

Two laps of the track, each with a different flying configuration, complete each pilot’s run.

Flying too high, too low, or too far from the prescribed angle incurs time penalties. For safety reasons, entering the starting gate at more than 360 km/h means automatic disqualification, as does crossing the track boundary lines and exceeding the 12G maximum load factor. 

That itself would seem to be an in-built deterrent. In layman’s terms, a 12G load factor equates to 12 times bodyweight where a typical 80kg pilot is subjected to stresses equal to roughly a ton.

To combat this, pilots wear a revolutionary anti-G suit introduced in April this year and the first to be used in civilian race planes. The suit incorporates ‘fluid muscles’ – two tubes front and back, each containing about a litre of water.

The fluid muscles build up pressure around the body during high-G manouevres, causing the non-stretch fabric of the suit to contract, acting like a giant tourniquet to stop blood pooling to the lower half of the body and ensuring that enough oxygen is still available to the brain and upper muscles.

Such extreme physical demands, coupled with the need for lightning-fast reflexes, would suggest that this is a young man’s game. Far from it. The average of the 15 pilots is nearing 46, and that is after factoring in Canada’s Pete McLeod, at 25 a full 11 years younger than his nearest challenger.

At the other end of the scale, Peter Besenyei is 53 and known as the godfather of the Red Bull series. One of the most famous pilots of his generation, Besenyei has claimed just about every aerobatics prize won except one: the Red Bull Air Race World Championship.

A national hero in his home country of Hungary, Besenyei has been voted sportsman of the year an unprecedented 21 times.

But the young bloods are beginning to make their presence felt. Australian rookie Matt Hall took his first podium finish in Oporto behind Bonhomme and Arch, while fellow newcomers Yoshihide Muroya (Japan) and Matthias Dolderer (Germany) showed impressive form and pace in the qualifying rounds.

Close on a million spectators are estimated to have watched the one and half days of racing in Oporto, lining the banks of the Douro and the terraced streets that line the steeply flanking hillsides.
Few venues create such a natural grandstand for an event that is already breaking records for crowd-pulling.

More than 3.5 million spectators attended the eight races in 2008 and 300 million viewers around the globe followed the Red Bull Air Race on television. The number of fans is growing year on year, appealing to all age groups and nationalities.

The championship is broadcast in 115 countries worldwide across six continents. Since it began in 2005, it has spread from Europe to take place in the USA, South America, the Middle East and Australia. Canada is the latest country to make its debut on the race calendar in 2009.

There are many exciting possibilities for future races: “We can take the Red Bull Air Race almost anywhere. It’s the truly global motor sport championship”, says Red Bull Air Race CEO Bernd Loidl.
And with more pilots due to join the circuit next year – possibly including the first female competitor – this is one Red Bull that’s really charging.