Dago Red

[planecrazy2]

Re: Dago Red

I feel gut-punched just reading this thread...

I feel gut-punched reading threads about any racers that are gone.
Beguine
RB-51
MAII
Vendetta
Deja Vu
Stilleto
BMB
Pond Racer
Super Corsair #1
Tsunami
Dago
GG

Prolly missed a few, sorry. But f**k it, I am 4 beers into this evening.....and not really happy right now.

[Smee Again]

Re: Dago Red

Hey Neal and Scotty,

Thanks for those amazing pics. And yes, I'd say all of us that had anything to do with the last incarnation of Dago were heartbroken to see the true potential remain unfulfilled. When we had our legs chopped out from underneath us in 2009, we decided to see what we could do with a similar engine and mod program for RR III. Well, we went nearly 490 on a couple laps, and had a race average of almost 478, gun blisters and all. Anyone care to guess where we might've been with Dago? Me neither...

SA

[wingman]

Re: Dago Red

Wonder workers -- The 2008 crew.

Thank you all. It was a good run...



Photo by Birgitta

[John]

Re: Dago Red

Thank you all for posting the excellent photos!

For some reason the checkered tail looks really good on Dago; although I realize it does not jive with the race number or some other elements of the paint scheme. This from one who liked the flames.

DAGO has a very clean looking radiator intake design. The '93 design was pretty square if I remember right, and did not look efficient. Who can the latest design be attributed too?

[wingman]

Re: Dago Red

My understanding is that it was the last of several designs worked up as part of a really major redesign of many aspects of the airframe and systems during the 1993-1995 time period. Bruce Lockwood did a great deal of research and the Museum of Flying team came up with a quite different approach than anything done by the Jeannie/Strega/Dago Mark I brain trust. To me it always seemed rather large and out of proportion visually, but it sure did work...

Maybe Mike Meek or Mike Barrow (or Bruce if he ever still comes around here) or someone could come in and explain some theory and practice. I've always wondered how the doghouse area and air flow differed between Dago and Strega.





For comparison, here is a shot by Birgitta of Tiger taxiing in after winning the Championship:




Neal

[WARPT]

Re: Dago Red

Still my personal favorite, I particularly wish Dan Martin, Sparrow, and company had had the time to take the airplane back to the front. I think they would have had a championship or two, given time to develop their approach with the airframe.

Agreed, my personal favorite as well. I have more DAGO RED shirts, jacket and hats than any other racer.
The fastest Mustang ever!

[Sparrow]

Re: Dago Red

Thanks to all for the comments and to Neal & Birgitta for the pictures. We had a good, hard working group of people for a crew, a damned good pilot and a lot of determination. Unfortunately it's turned out to be a great big what if. We felt we had a good engine since we had finally gotten all the gear mods in place, we felt it would be very strong. Seemed to be as was demonstrated in RR III in '09.

To say we were disappointed with how it turned out would at best be an understatement. To that end it was an honor and a priviledge to be able to operate such a beautiful airplane. A big Thank You to Terry Bland as well for giving us the opportunity. Also a sincere Thank You to Dan Martin and all the devoted RR III and Dago crew members for the 15 years we all raced together, you're a great bunch of people.

Sparrow

[MRE]

Re: Dago Red

Before I had a chance to play with Dago I always wondered if the scoop when viewed from the side had the same profile as a stock one. When I had the chance I took a tape and checked it out. It is as deep as a stock unit,more or less. The scoop and dog house are one piece giving a lot of room to shape the tunnel leading to the radiator. It has a beautiful,flowing shape inside,and I'm sure that is why it works so well. Also it is more narrow over all than stock. Being that it hangs down lower it has a little more room to play with the shape of the floor of the tunnel. Of course I have never had the chance to take a tape to Strega, but both seem to work pretty damn good. When I did the scoop for RRIII I tried to incorporate as much as I could the features of Dago's. 5 or 6 more weeks and Dago would have been flying. Such a waste.

[Arctic Cat]

Re: Dago Red

On the flip side,has Dago always had the slider canopy or did it originally have a flip up unit. If so when did the sider go on?

[Big_Jim]

Re: Dago Red

On the flip side,has Dago always had the slider canopy or did it originally have a flip up unit. If so when did the sider go on?

1986...after Alan Preston 'won' it. He changed the flip canopy to the slider.

[boomtown]

Re: Dago Red

Another difference with Dago that I have always wondered about was the horizontal. It's not clipped like Strega, Vodoo, and others. Any insight on the detail?

[MIKE NIXON]

Re: Dago Red

the original was ejected by Rick Bricket during sunday's race in 1984 when the engine ( which had a prop strike a month before) exploded. The slider was done during the winter when the plane was repaired from the oil fire. Strega had the slider from the beginning.
On a side note, Dago was the next step after we tested a race engine in #72 at Reno 1981. The plane had stock canopy, cliped wings and stock tail and scoop. Ron Hevle was doing a 440+ lap during qual when the nitrous system valve failed and burned a few pistons.
Dago had the following mods when first raced in '82: new scoop with no oil cooler, outer wing panels removed, horizontal angle back to zero degrees, vert fin moved to one degree to right from 1.5 to the left, low canopy and turtle deck, heat exchanger for oil cooling, new radiator plates and pipes for cooling system, nitrous system and a race engine with -7 blower gears, .383 reduction gears, a lot of other stuff and was set to run at 3600/3700 RPM. The folowing summer the 15K record was bumped up to 517MPH. after that it had a few years of maint issues. Preston was charging to the lead his last year when the canopy latch failed and had to pull out of the race. Over the next few years we had up and down results. I moved on to other things after the year of the shoot-out when David slowed down a bit early and got jumped by Miss A. Dwight brought his charm into the mix then and had a number of good years with Lockwood flying.
I was talked into getting back into the gold racing in '06 by Tiger and LD. Too many problems to sort out but made it to Sundays race before low oil psi forced Tiger out. In '07 we had the lower end sorted out but broke a used piston on saturday. In '08 I had new pistons built by Arias in LA and there has been nobody in front since. We have seen 542MPH on the preaks and 515 on the lap times.
I had a lot of photos of Dago being built in '81 + "82 but a friend lost them years ago. The wing was done at Aero Sport and the rest was done at my shop in Sun Valley. Things were mated in July '82, flew a month later and Reno three weeks later. We took all that knowledge to Bakersfield that fall and started Strega for '83.
If I can find a 14 year old to post it for me, I will post a pic of me running Dago an hour before the first flight.
Pete Law has a lot of pics of Dago being built as he and Bruce Boland were a big part of our design team.
MN

[Big_Jim]

Re: Dago Red

the original was ejected by Rick Bricket during sunday's race in 1984 when the engine ( which had a prop strike a month before) exploded. The slider was done during the winter when the plane was repaired from the oil fire.

]

Just a picker of nits here (which I'm sure I'll take my usual ribbing for, so I apologize up front) but a "new" replacement tilt-canopy was put on after the '84 fire. It was at least a year and a half after that. This picture is from the spring of 1986 after Stiletto had been repainted in the Color Tile scheme, and Preston had just 'won' Dago from Taylor. It still has Rick's name on the canopy, and it's still the tilt-top verison. The second photo (Sorry...I don't know who took it, it's just part of my collection) I think is in Dallas...and it has the tilt-canopy still on it but with Preston's name on the rail now. So it had to be summer/fall of '86 when the slider went on...because at Reno '86 the new one was in use.

Somewhere I have a cool picture of Rick flying Dago home to Chino 'open cockpit' after the fire at Reno in '84. Must've been a fun flight!

On a completely separate issue, Mike...I read an article many years ago about the time you got out of racing for a while where you were talking about if Mickey Rupp could get the new Roush pistons up and going in Samurai, that you felt that would be a world-beater. I was friends with Mickey, and I know he just had horrible luck with keeping them together. What were they trying back then, and are we seeing third or fourth generation developments of that today?

[wingman]

Re: Dago Red

Mike Nixon, before the 1986 Gold Race. It was cold...

The hair on the left belongs to his wife Kim, and Karen Hinton is on the right.

Neal

[wingman]

Re: Dago Red

Mike Nixon does an engine run in Dago Red Mark I...