No one can accuse John Hale of not seeking adventure.

 

Hale ran his own Nostalgia Funny Car team and he drove a nitro Funny Car for Jim Dunn Racing in the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

 

Now, Hale is a pilot competing in competition aerobatics events sanctioned by the International Aerobatic Club (IAC), which is a division of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and the National Aeronautics Association (NAA). It promotes aerobatics and governs the sport of competition aerobatics in the United States under the regulations of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).

 

“I have aerobatic airplanes and I went to my first competition here in North Texas in Sherman (May 14-15) and I got a respectable second place and believe it or not the guy who took first was competing in another class for a belt buckle so if you compete in two classes you can only compete in the other class for a patch, so I won the belt buckle. I have this bitchin’ belt buckle, like a rodeo champion buckle.”

 

Hale took a moment to explain how the event unfolded.

 

“It is a two-day competition,” Hale said. “You have to do a routine that is made up of loops and spins and rolls and turns. You get graded on it by five different judges. You get a practice day, the day before the event and then you fly once on Friday and twice on Saturday. Then they average your scores from three routines.”

 

Hale acknowledged he didn’t become a pilot on a whim.

 

“This was something right along the lines of drag racing that I wanted to do as a kid,” Hale said. “Once I kind of stepped away from drag racing I already had a trainer plane and I just stepped into it. I actually went down to Florida to get away from distractions and finished up my (pilot’s) license, which I completed in February of 2020.

 

“At my first competition I was flying one of the least powered, hardest to fly planes called a Citabria. I have a hangar up here in McKinney (Texas) where I have three airplanes. I’m going to switch to my Extra 330 plane, which is a fully aerobatic unlimited airplane so I can fly in a different class.”

 

Hale said his next aerobatic competition will be in Akroville, Texas, July 10.

 

“You know it is still exerting forces on your body, but instead of mashing the gas and steering this thing you have to use throttle changes, rutter changes and you’re flying with a stick so it is actually a little more physical and it is every bit as much or more mental because when you come out of one maneuver you have to have enough speed to enter the other maneuver and score well. If you come out of one maneuver and you go into your loop and you don’t have enough speed when you get to the top you start falling. Your loop is not round. 

 

“It is every bit or more challenging than driving a Funny Car.”  

 

 On the drag racing front, Hale most recently competed at the season-opening event in the 2021 Spell Paving Services Funny Car Chaos Championship Tour, presented by Red Line Shirt Club at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, March 26-27.

 

Hale, who has won the Hot Rod Reunion twice, drove Paul Gordon’s Red Baron Nostalgia Funny Car and had great success in qualifying before having his race day end abruptly before he made it to the starting line in round one.

 

“We qualified third out of like 68 cars and then we had an issue,” Hale said. “They put a clutch pack in it and the clutch pack was too thick and they didn’t figure it out for us in time to make first round. They put the thing entirely back together and then they turned the motor, and it wouldn’t turn. They had to take it all the way apart and they couldn’t find out what it was, and we ran out of time.” 

 

“I was going to drive for him at the Funny Car Chaos race in Odessa (Texas, May 14-15), but I couldn’t go because I was flying in an aerobatic competition. Paul is doing some things to the race car and if he asks me again to drive, I will gladly step in.”