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Red Bull Air Race Challenger Class
American Kevin Coleman Claims First Red Bull Air Race Challenger Class Win at Ascot

Like a mustang let loose on a thoroughbred track, Louisiana-born Kevin Coleman had free rein of the United Kingdom’s genteel Ascot Racecourse on Saturday, earning the first victory of his Red Bull Air Race Challenger Class career. Coleman’s time of 1 minute, 19.478 seconds was nearly a half-second faster than second-place Florian Bergér of Germany and nearly two seconds ahead of third-place Cristian Bolton of Chile.

First introduced in 2014, the Challenger Cup is an element of the Red Bull Air Race created to help the next generation of pilots develop the expertise for potential advancement to the Master Class that competes for the World Championship, and while competition is part of the program, the primary objective is to learn and expand skills. New to the Challenger roster this year, Coleman has been a particularly quick study, with three second-place finishes already to his name before his Ascot triumph.  

Earlier in the day, the United Kingdom’s own Ben Murphy had earned rousing cheers from the thousands of British fans as he topped the Challanger Class qualifying times; but after grazing a pylon in the heat of the race, the former Commanding Officer and Team Leader of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team – the Red Arrows – had to settle for sixth place. Mélanie Astles of France and Daniel Ryfa of Sweden rounded out Ascot’s Challenger Class field.

“It’s awesome. This is something I’ve dreamed of since I was 13 years old and I turned 26 in June, so it took 13 years to do it,” Coleman said.

Going on to mention the debut of the Red Bull Air Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in October, he continued, “We’ve worked really hard all year, and there have been two races that I absolutely wanted to win – Ascot and Indianapolis. So we’ve got one checked off and hopefully we can go to Indy and win there, too.”

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