Dolderer 'Ready to Rock' at IMS as Title Within Reach
October 01, 2016 | By Phillip B. Wilson
When Matthias Dolderer was 5 years old, his parents opened an airfield in Germany, so most of his first childhood memories are of aviation.
Because there wasn’t a Red Bull Air Race World Championship then, the young man spent time on two tennis courts in front of the family home. It was about the same time Germany’s Boris Becker was rising up through the world rankings in a career that would eventually include six major singles titles and becoming the youngest Wimbledon champion at the age of 17.
“The first idea was to become a tennis professional,” Dolderer said Saturday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
But at 14, Dolderer started flying. It wasn’t long before he preferred looking down on those tennis courts as opposed to playing on them.
“This kind of freedom and lifestyle or feeling you get in the aircraft, you don’t get anywhere else,” said Dolderer, 46. “I just got hooked by aviation. I was doing the control tower for a while, then sightseeing flights. At 21, I was the youngest flight instructor in Germany and had my airline traffic transports license. I started flying jets and everything.”
The series points leader can clinch his first world championship by finishing first or second on Sunday afternoon in a bracket heat format that awards 15 points for first and 12 for second. Australian Matt Hall, the 2015 runner-up, is the closest pursuer yet again, trailing by 16.5 points.
Dolderer’s rise might seen somewhat sudden considering he’s been around since 2009 and the highest previous ranking was fifth last year. But two wins and three runner-up finishes have put him in an ideal position to celebrate a memorable first visit to such a historic venue.
“Absolutely, that would be super nice,” he said. “It would be amazing to do it this year, but there’s still a long way to go. Every race day has its own laws. You can’t predict what’s going on because of the head-to-head modes we have. It’s a little bit different than in motorsports, where if you have a fast car and fast driver, if he’s in the pole position he’s hard to beat. Here, if you do one little mistake, you’re out. You don’t proceed from the round of 14 to the round of eight. There’s no guarantee.”
As Indianapolis 500 drivers have often said in May, the key is concentration.
“You don’t even think about it,” he said of the chance to clinch. “You just think run to run. This helps me to stay focused and calm. If you think too much about what could happen, might happen, whatever, then you get distracted and then you can’t perform your best anymore.
“I don’t care against whom I fly. It’s just myself. You will see on race day, half of the pilots will take themselves out because they do mistakes. This is the major goal, not to do mistakes, to fly clean and calm. It’s really important. When you think it’s a slow run, it’s a fast run. If it feels slow inside the plane, it’s funny, it’s so smooth that it’s fast.”
What could also benefit Dolderer is the fact Hall, 45, has been a bit under the weather.
"I've been battling a bout of gastro this week and I felt pretty flat and drained after that first flight, so I thought it was best to get some rest and recover,” Hall said. “I'm happy with the first free practice session and tomorrow is a new day. Hopefully I'll be feeling better.”
The top American hopeful is two-time series champion Kirby Chambliss, 56, of Corpus Christi, Texas. He’s fourth in the points with two races remaining in his 11th season. His hangar is next to Hall’s and Dolderer’s on the IMS infield, but that doesn’t mean Chambliss concerns himself with how the race could play out for them.
“We’re not going to make it to the No. 1 spot this time, but of course we always want to finish up as high as we possibly can,” Chambliss said. “Honestly, I’m about winning the next two races. What they’re doing, I don’t care as long as I’m in front of them.
“It would be fantastic to win. I can tell you for sure you won’t see me sitting down for the national anthem.”
Pilots are quick to remind their three-lap runs can be decided by split seconds. All it takes to ruin a weekend is a 3-second penalty for a wing clipping a gate pylon on the 1.85-mile course.
Dolderer sounds confident and content. He’s become quickly comfortable at IMS.
“It’s a racing city. You feel it, the spirit, when you get here, in all the history in the race track and in the Speedway town,” he said. “When we knew were coming here at the end of last year, everyone was excited to get here because of all the history. To whomever I talked about the race track here in Indianapolis, like the Formula One guys, they were super happy about it in their experiences.
“What we really like is the friendliness of all the people. The emotion from the people here in town, they’re all about motorsports and everyone is interested. That’s very cool to see. It will be very interesting to see how many people come out here to see what is going on. The track setup is good, so we’re ready to rock.”