June 27, 2005
Air Race Classic announces winners
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A pair of flight veterans are the winners of the 2005 Air Race Classic.
The winning Air Race Classic team was team No. 11, made up of Sophie Payton, of Clearwater, Fla., and Marilyn Patierno, of Spruce Creek, Fla. Payton's great-niece, Erica Cochoff, of Acworth, Ga., flew with the team as a passenger.
The announcement of the winning teams was made at a banquet Sunday (June 26) marking the end of a week of festivities surrounding this year's race, which was based at Purdue Univerity.
The Air Race Classic is the longest-running and only remaining all-women's air race in the United States. Forty-one teams participated in this year's 2,300-mile race, which took off from the Purdue Airport on June 21 and wrapped up June 24.
Payton has logged more than 3,500 hours as a pilot and was recently awarded the FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for her 61 years as a pilot. Having participated in a variety of races since the 1940s, this was Payton’s 16th Air Race Classic, and she is a member of the Florida Suncoast 99s and the Silver Wings.
Patierno is an active member of several flight organizations, including the North New Jersey 99s, the Women's Formation Flying Gaggle, Angel Flight and the Grasshoppers.
Cochoff is in high school and recently earned a student flying certificate. Besides flying, she is active in her high school cross-country team, and coaches her 8-year-old sister's basketball team.
A pair of pilots from Western Michigan University, made up of Sarah Tower and Erica Ebenhoeh, won the Collegiate Cup, beating four other university teams.
Tower, of Battle Creek, Mich., completed her second year of the race after her team finished 10th last year. Tower is a flight instructor at Western Michigan and has earned a commercial certificate with single- and multi-engine ratings.
Ebenhoeh, of Kalamazoo, Mich., graduated from Western Michigan in 2004 and is currently completing her certified flight instructor training. She holds commercial certificates with single- and multi-engine ratings. This is her first year participating in the Air Race Classic.
Purdue fielded two teams in this year's race. The team of Kristina Lukas, of Park Ridge, Ill., and Katherine Conrad, Cincinnati, finished third in the collegiate competition.
The race isn't won by speed or by the size and power of a team's aircraft. Teams win based on the efficiency and accuracy they exhibit in every aspect of the race. Teams are rated based on their performance compared to their airplane's handicap. Because of the nature of the scoring, it is impossible to gauge a team's performance in relation to other teams until the competition is over.
This year's race included stops in Winona, Minn.; Beatrice, Neb.; Bartlesville, Okla.; Shreveport, La.; Walnut Ridge, Ark.; Tullahoma, Tenn.; Ohio University in Athens, Ohio; and Frankfort, Ind.
Writer: Matt Holsapple, (765) 494-2073, mholsapple@purdue.edu
Source: Libby Woelfert, Air Race Classic Planning Committee, (765) 860-0683
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Contact information for the two winning teams is available from Maggie Morris at (765) 494-2432.
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Purdue University Home Page
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