Jones Edges Field for Victory

Douro River, Portugal – September 4, 2007 – Great Britain’s Steve Jones won the 8th leg of the Red Bull Air Race World Series in Portugal Saturday, beating World Series leader Mike Mangold of the United States by a mere 0.38 of a second. Cars came to a standstill on the roads and trains were sold out, as more than 600,000 spectators packed the banks of the Douro River in Porto/Gaia, making it the biggest single-day sporting event in Portuguese history. With a time of 1:10:00, it was Jones’ first win of the season. Paul Bonhomme of Great Britain took third by winning the consolation race against Peter Besenyei of Hungary. “It was great,” said Jones after the race. “I was hoping to get into the 1:10s. To do a 1:10 level is amazing. I just think this track really suited my airplane. The airplane is doing very well so I’m extremely happy. I’ve also helped Paul a bit (by beating Mangold), which is good, even if it was not as much as possible. And it’s good for the Matadors team, of course, getting points for the team competition as well.” Jones and Bonhomme consist of Team Matador, while Mangold and Hannes Arch make up Team Cobra. Mangold still leads the series, which has two more stops, with 41 points. Bonhomme, who has led for most of the season before Mangold moved ahead in Budapest, is second with 39 points. The Red Bull Air Race pilots hit speeds of up to 250 mph and forces of up to 10G in the race finals flown on the compact slalom course just feet above the water. The final two stops of the series are in San Diego, on Sept. 22, and Perth, Australia, on Nov. 4. World Series Standings Pilot/Overall points Mike Mangold 41 Paul Bonhomme 39 Peter Besenyei 30 Kirby Chambliss 22 Steve Jones 14 Alejandro Maclean 13 Hannes Arch 3 Frank Versteegh 3 Nigel Lamb 1 Michael Goulian 1 Nicolas Ivanoff 1 Sergey Rakhmanin 0 Klaus Schrodt 0		Kirby Chambliss gets a close look at one of the race pylons over the weekend. This stop on the Red Bull Air Race series drew a crowd so large that it set a record in Portugal. Photo credit: (c)Schaad/Red Bull Photofiles Steve Jones clears a pylon on his way to victory. Jones won this stop on the Red Bull Air Race Series by an incredible 0.38 seconds over Mike Mangold. Photo credit: (c)balazsgardi.com/Red Bull Photofiles Nicholas Ivanoff flies the course over the Douro River in Portugal. Photo credit: (c)Daniel Grund /Red Bull Photofiles. Steve Jones (center) celebrates his victory in the latest stop on the Red Bull Air Race series. Photo credit: (c)balazsgardi.com/Red Bull Photofiles
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