F-16 Fighting Falcon News

June 10, 2008 (by Asif Shamim) - The GP2 race driver Christian Bakkerud came second best in a race off with an F-16 belonging to Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) at this years Karup airshow.
Bakkerud had to wait for his chance to take on the F-16 as the build up took a little with a hugh crowd of 75,000 attending the annual air show at Karup.

"The build-up to the event was just awesome!" he exclaimed, "It's hard to describe in words the weekend we experienced, but I'm sure I'm speaking for both myself and the team when I say that the guys at Karup Air Force base made us feel enormously welcome.

"The whole day, up until the race, was busy speaking to all of the people who had turned up to see the air show and we met lots and lots of enthusiastic people which I hope we now have added to our motorsport fan base!"

"As we were getting ready to go, it was just flooded with spectators around the runways and, as time drew nearer, we were told the schedule was slightly delayed. At this point, I was already in my car with the engine running and with my engineer, Patrick Coorey - who was in the air traffic control tower co-ordinating my movements with that of the fighter pilot - had to ask me to drive around to try and keep the engine temperature down, so we all started to get a bit tense. We certainly didn't want it all to go pear-shaped so close to the showdown!"

"Afterwards, I was told that another 5-6 seconds and my engine would have over-heated and died, and that would have been a very disappointing finish, but, as it transpired, it all went beautifully. As we suspected, right at the last tenth of a second, the plane caught up and finished ever so slightly ahead of me, but it wasn't a clear win and I'm pleased about that! My top speed at the finish line was 300km/h and the F16's was 450km/h, so you can see that I got away quicker at the start."

"It's not every day you see an F16 Fighter Jet in your rear mirrors and, after the race, the pilot, Nick Kenneth Hansen, flew low next to me so we showed the spectators these two fantastic machines together in a drive/fly past. Now I'm looking forward to see the TV footage!"