"My biggest dream has come true"
SALZBURG, Austria - Japan’s Yoshihide Muroya is proud to be the first pilot from Asia in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship and is confident his entry will help galvanise interest in the sport across the continent even if it might take him a while to get into the points. 35-year-old Muroya, who has been flying since he was 17, spent the last year focussing on his preparations for the Qualification Camp in September and the hard work paid off when he was picked as one of four newcomers for the 2009 season, the largest class of rookies in Red Bull Air Race World Championship history.
“My biggest dream has come true,” Muroya said. “It’s going to be quite difficult competing for a possible 1/100th of a second advantage against so many other great pilots. I’ve got a lot of preparation work ahead of me.” Muroya said he will be putting together his team and working on a race plane in the months ahead. He will also be concentrating on improving his physical fitness to cope with the high Gs of the race as well as his mental fitness by learning the traditional Zazen meditation. In another bit of unorthodox preparation, Muroya plans to do some race car driving to help prepare for the race. Yet no matter how much preparation he puts in over the winter, “Yoshi” realises it will be difficult as a rookie to break out of the lower half of the field.
Goal is to get into the Super 8
“It will be quite difficult to get good results from the beginning,” he said, even though he will be in the same boat with three other rookies and, in theory, could at least be in front of them in the early races. “Also, my plane's modifications will not be ready in time. I think at first there will be a big difference because of the experience that the veteran pilots have. For the first four races I’ll be concentrating on flying safe and getting through the track without any penalties. For the next four races my goal will be to try to get into the Super Eights. I think it will take about a year to have an impact – by about the 2010 season.”
Muroya has 10 years of aerobatics experience and got his pilot’s licence at the age of 19 in Los Angeles to save a few yen. A talented linguist, Muroya has picked up English with relative ease over the years - mainly by attending various flying events and camps.
Muroya's career
“I started flying gliders when I was 18 and got my pilot’s license at 19,” said Muroya, who lives in Fukushima, Japan and is also an avid snowboarder. “I started working as a glider instructor when I was 22. I got into aerobatics when I was 24 and did my first air show 10 years ago. I’m really looking forward to flying in the race against so many super pilots.”
Like the other rookies, Muroya sees 2008 World Champion Hannes Arch as his role model – and not only because the Austrian proved that rookies can learn the ropes fast by winning the championship in his second year. Muroya said he admires the way Arch, who might not have had as many hours flying as his rivals, meticulously went about his preparations - watching, listening, patiently learning, building a fast plane and putting together a strong team.
“I was in the same camp with Hannes in 2006 and admire the way he set out a roadmap for himself and did it,” said Muroya. “He had his plan and he did it.”
Muroya, who has two young daughters and a third child on the way, said there has already been a stirring of interest in the Red Bull Air Race in recent years in Japan, a nation that loves motor sports. “There are
already a lot of fans in Japan as the race has been on television this year. A lot of people know about the Red Bull Air Race. I think there will be an explosion of interest in the race next year with the first pilot from Asia.”
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