Description: Flying wingtip-to-wingtip around pylons at nearly 500 mph, just yards above the desert floor, the Mustangs, Bearcats, and Corsairs of the Reno Air Races are the fastest, loudest, baddest piston-engined aircraft in the world. Using the same fly-on-the-wall reportage as in his Bogeys and Bandits, Gandt tells the story of Reno's 1997/1998 championship season. A wealth of anecdotal material, going back to the early days of air racing, provides the underpinning of the story, but the book focuses on the year culminating in the 1998 races. Gandt illuminates the fierce, colorful rivalries between the elite pilots, their struggles to keep airworthy their million dollar monster machines, the danger and the drama of a high-risk (often deadly) sport, and the obsessive drive for more speed. Like Wolfe, Krakauer, and Junger, Gandt explores the passions that drive men and women to push their limits -- and tells a hell of a good yarn in the process.

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