The month of September
September was one of the biggest month’s in the history of Matt Hall Racing. The top highlight was Matt racing to his very first Red Bull Air Race World Championship victory in Chiba, Japan. It was a result eight seasons in the making and one of the most popular victories in the history of the air race.
Our team were also at air shows and there have been plenty of other events making up September. Take a look back in chronological order at our top 9 highlights from one of our favourite months – ever.
9: Rewind to August
Not technically September, but our lead into the first month of spring (or autumn/fall, for you northern hemisphere weirdo’s) was a hectic one. We found ourselves in the middle of the Aussie outback on a charter flight, which was an amazing experience for all involved.
It meant that we would hit the ground running in September after a few days in the great Australian nothingness.
8: Arriving in Chiba, Japan
There is not a better feeling than landing in a location for the next race. The start of the week is filled with plans, hopes and the biggest of aspirations for what might be. The one secret to being on a race team is that on a Monday, race day Sunday seems to be a long way away…but it creeps up on you suddenly.
We’ll miss this feeling.
7: Having our backs against the wall
It might seem odd to list our ‘average’ qualifying result in Chiba as a highlight of the month. But in racing, if you can’t handle the low points then you can’t appreciate the high points. The real kicker here was seeing our main rival for the championship Martin Šonka (Czech Republic) claim second in qualifying and extend his championship lead from four to six points.
It simply served to make our chances of winning the title that little bit harder. It also helped motivate us to make the most of our final race day.
5: WORLD CHAMPIONS!
What more can we say, how is this not a highlight? We’ll let the pictures do the talking, check out the video below of how our season panned out to get to this point.
4: TV, media, talks and more
Here’s the thing about winning…when that happens, you don’t get to kick back and relax. Instead you get to do more work, but it’s a great problem to have! While we might not have cracked the back page of the newspaper, we did have plenty of media interest – like the article below!
3: Celebrating with the Australian aviation community
Two weeks after the big win, we were on the road again and the team were in Parkes, NSW for AirVenture! You can see a full recap of that event HERE. But one of the highlights was taking our other race plane, the MXS-R and hitting the sky for some high-performance aerobatics.
Flying at speed, in a display, is the perfect tonic to get that race feeling back!
2: Cubbin’
A big thanks to our mate Kenny for lending us his beautiful Piper J-3 Cub! When you have a business built around high performance aircraft, sometimes it isn’t so bad to kick it all back a gear and soak up the scenery. This was a great way to score some time cruising around during a full-throttle month.
1: Fan support
To top off the month was the support we have received from our supporters – the wider #TeamMHR community. From those that travelled to the race, to everyone who watched us race from Australia – thank you! Here’s a pic of two of our biggest fans, Fletcher and Flynn, who came by to say congrats, drop off a gift and pick up their merchandise.
We stock shirts as small as size 4, and we promise Flynn was MUCH more delighted than he looks in this picture!
