Women at the Air Races covers a broad spectrum of involvement. From pilots, to controllers, to crew members, to journalists; here is an article about two of them.

STEAD AIRPORT – This year the Sport Class has been growing and one of the new rookie pilots is Chiwami Takagi-Read. She’s racing the plane owned by Richard Ogg although its his name listed in the program.

Chiwami Takagi-Read stands with her plane owner Richard Ogg. In her rookie outing she’s doing well and a contender in the Bronze Sport class.

“I’ve been in aviation since 1995 and was a helicopter pilot first, now I’m an instructor and teach from private to ATP,” she said. “When I was a little child I always wanted to fly, doesn’t matter if it was an airplane, balloon or helicopter.”

Earlier this year she attended PRS then flew her first race on Thursday. Asked how it went she answered, “that was a lot of fun.”

And like the rest of the pilots she had to qualify when the weather wasn’t windy and not so good.

“That was really bumpy, the airplane was shaking, I was hitting my head on the left, right and on the top,” she said.

Asked about her qualifying and her first race went, Ogg said, “Very well.”

When asked if she wants more she said, “Yes, more, this is addicting.”

Chiwami originally came from Nagoyo, Japan but lives with her husband in San Jose, California where she teaches flying.

On Friday Chiwami worked her way into fourth then spent the remainder of her heat race holding off challenges from two other pilots. Then on Saturday she finished third in her heat race.

Chiwami Takagi-Read takes off and flew to a third place in her Saturday heat race.

Like any racer there are people that have helped her along the way and she is thankful for their support. And she appreciates Ogg for letting her race his plane.

She’s also thankful to Wayne Handley, who taught her aerobatics, Rocky Mountain Renegades in Colorado where she learned formation flying and PRS instructor Ernie Sutter for showing her how to fly the course.

“Bigest thanks to my husband Greg Read as without him I’m not here,” she said.

Now she looking forward to her final race this weekend, the Sport Bronze, and plans to return next year.

Another woman rookie here isn’t a pilot but a journalist that’s experiencing her first ever air races. She’s Polina Shkividorova and comes all the way from Moscow, Russia.

Polina Shkividorova interviews defending IF1 champion Steven Senegal for the magazine she’s working for.

“I’m writing for the magazine that is called Vertical World and it’s dedicated to extreme sports,” she said.

She has covered a Red Bull event and added the magazine writes about them regularly.

Asked how she got interested in the National Championship Air Races she said, “I was writing about aerobatic pilots and when you get ready for the interview you try to read as much as you can.”

She added that when a person is reading about aerobatics they can’s miss references to Reno.

She’s been her all week and is enjoying her visit and meeting pilots and people.

As far as what has impressed her the most she said, “Racing. I never saw such an event with airplanes racing, a lot of them at the same time. They start, fly together and that’s very impressive.”

Once the races are over Polina will visit a couple of places, including Lake Tahoe, then head for home and write the article about her time at the air races.