A Brief History About Seawind Racing
in the AirVenture Cup
Each year, the Experimental Aircraft Association and several other sponsors
stage the "AirVenture Cup Race." Read more about this historic race at
the EAA Website.
In 2001, Art Culver entered his Seawind in the race for the first time. Since
there was not a category that fit the Seawind class of airplane, Art had to race
in the "Sport" category which included all of the super hot, fast, 300
HP planes such as Glasairs, Lancairs, etc. Because of several fortuitous events,
and to everyone's surprise, Art took third place in the 2001 AirVenture cup
race!
In 2002, at Art's encouragement, two additional ISPA members entered their Seawinds
in the race.
This resulted in the race officials developing a separate category, "Sea
Sport Airplane," that more closely matches the Seawind characteristics. In fact,
since no other amphibious airplane even comes close to the Seawind, we expect
that Seawind will RULE this category in all of the foreseeable future AirVenture
races.
Art (and especially our organization) would like to see more participation by
Seawind owners in the AirVenture Cup race. Entrants are treated like royalty and
enjoy some great benefits at the annual AirVenture event in Oshkosh Wisconsin.
If any of you have questions, or want information about entering next years AirVenture
Cup race, Art has agreed to help. He can be reached by phone at 252-535-5353, or
e-mail here.
A brief write-up about each of the entrants can be seen at the links above
(or below this paragraph, or at the bottom of this page).
Take a look and see how our members are participating in this exciting facet of
Seawind ownership.
Also check out the photo of Mike and Jody Bowes beautiful Seawind, N369JB,
below. This air to air photo was taken a couple of days after the race at
Oshkosh while the Bowes still had the race decals on their Seawind. Also see
other photos from this photo session in the Photos
portion of our site.
