For years Hartzell has ruled the roost in Sport class racing around the pylons at Reno. Their “race prop,” as it’s universally called, has been found faithfully propelling nearly every front runner Glasair and Lancair for over a decade and it’s responded well as race speeds have steadily climbed.
But a glance around the Sport Gold hangar at Reno shows some new hardware on some of the fast movers. Last year, as we recently reported, McCauley stepped with a new, small-diameter scimitar for Andrew Findlay’s Lancair, and now David Sterling is sporting a Whirlwind composite constant speed with newly designed blades on his Lancair. So far the fastest man in Sport, Jeff LaVelle, has remained faithful to the time-tested Hartzell, but the hangar gossip is Hartzell is working on a new race prop.
If we were betting types, we’d say the prop folks are upping their game via Reno racing, which sounds like a win for everybody.
