WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Downtown Wausau Airport will be a busy place on Wednesday and Thursday for The Air Race Classic.
The Air Race Classic is an all-women cross-country airplane race that is using the airport as a timing line. Kayleigh Bordner the Director of Publicity for the Air Race Classic explains the details of the race.
“So it’s comprised of 9 airports. We take 4 days to fly the race and it’s all in visual flight conditions. Which basically means that you can’t like fly through clouds if it’s a low visibility, rainy, kind of gloomy day. We can’t really fly through anything like that.”
And poor weather conditions actually contributed to the Air Race Classic having to cancel two legs of the race. So instead of flying from Jackson Tennessee to LaGrange Georgia, and then from there to Hattiesburg Mississippi. Participants instead flew from Jackson to Bryant Arkansas.
Bordner says people in Wausau can expect to see participants in town overnight and completing flybys at the airport.
“So you might see a lot of women pilots walking around town in the evening if they decide to overnight. If you’re out at the airport, you can expect flybys by all the aircraft. So you’ll see the aircraft planes flying fairly close to the ground to start and stop their time. And then they’ll come in and land at the airport.”
The race route differs every year and this will be the first time the race has come through Wausau. Bordner explains how Wausau became a stop on the route.
“People can put in for a specific airport to be considered for a stop. So anybody who knows of an airport that would be a good candidate for one of these stops along various routes can submit it. And then it goes under review by the Air Race Classic board. And they come up with the different race routes every single year.”
While the race is all-female, Bordner says the race is about more than just celebrating female pilots. It’s also about educating the public on aviation outside of airline carriers.
“It also helps educate the public about general aviation and that aviation isn’t just about the airlines. It’s about hobby pilots and people who love flying and just the different things that you can do with general aviation.”
Bordner also mentions that the Air Race Classic helps to educate and empower women of all ages to get into aviation and flying. Anyone who would like to get involved with the Air Race Classic can reach out on social media and through their website, www.airraceclassic.org.
The Air Race Classic began on Tuesday in Jackson Tennessee and will finish on Friday in Welland Ontario Canada. Pilots will be headed to Sault Ste. Marie Michigan and Ontario after leaving Wausau.
