CoolPix: Crowd Favorite Rare Bear - In The Evening At Reno 2012

(click pic for hi-res) The beast lives on... the Grumman F8 Bearcat racer: Rare Bear

 I respect and admire the P-51 Strega for what it represents; a team of people that have pursued power, speed, reliability, and flying consistency. If you don't respect what that airplane stands for then you don't really love air racing... and a Sea Fury like September Fury is an awesome and beautiful airplane - one that I have loved since seeing Frank Sanders fly aerobatics countless times at Oshkosh way back in the day... and I really appreciate what the P-51 Precious Metal brings to Reno racing with its fabulous counter-rotating props and a colorful team that is really enjoying their chance to play in the big game... but deep down in my heart, I can't deny that I'm a Bearcat guy. With that in mind, I'm not afraid to tell you that Rare Bear stole my heart a really long time ago.

 It really all started for me when I was a kid and my dad took me to the Reno Air Races in the late 60's. Even tho I wasn't even 10 years old yet, I understood the amazing things going on out in the desert in Nevada. The first Unlimited racer to stir my imagination was another F8 Bearcat named Conquest 1 flown by Darryl Greenamyer. Conquest 1 wasn't just a Bearcat tho, it was the dominate racer of its day, and the airplane that set the speed record of 483.041mph on August 16, 1969. I had the amazing opportunity to be at Reno and see Conquest 1 race from 1967 thru 1970. The Grumman F8 Bearcat was forever burned into my mind as the ultimate racer, and Darryl Greenamyer was my hero.

 So now, in the 'modern era' of Reno air racing, the ultimate racer role (in my mind) has been played by Rare Bear. The Bear has a long and impressive history of winning, even tho for the last several years it's been looking at Strega from behind... sometimes pretty far behind. But it remains a crowd favorite. At this year's Gold race, the announcers stirred up crowd reaction to the different racers, and Rare Bear got the biggest response. We love all the racers, but there's just something special about Rare Bear! So today I'm sharing an awesome CoolPix image of Rare Bear that I captured on Thursday evening at Reno. It was actually about an hour before I got that amazing pic of Precious Metal running after sunset with the wild reflections coming off the props. That was a really great evening for me!

 I hope you enjoy this beautiful CoolPix image of a truly fabulous racing airplane. And, for your continued enjoyment, I've made it available to you in four popular desktop sizes in case you'd like to look at this amazing beast every day : )

Rare Bear in the evening at Reno 2012 desktop pix:

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 You might also like these other AirPigz categories:
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Comments

[Niels]

Excellent pictures of an awsome aircraft!

[eitvaldu]

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[eitvaldu]

eitvaldu e3d3fd1842 https://www.probnation.com/taibreakawup