First Red Bull Race Saturday

Red Bull Air Races start Saturday in Abu Dhabi.
Red Bull Air Races start Saturday in Abu Dhabi.

London, Ontario’s Pete McLeod is in Abu Dhabi preparing for the first Red Bull Air Race event of the season.

McLeod told The Londoner newspaper that he’s still worried about gremlins in his Edge 540’s engine that were largely to blame for him not achieving the results he wanted in last year’s races.

Because the engine isn’t making maximum power, McLeod had to fly more aggressively and incurred more penalties than usual. The penalties kept him from reaching the podium in several races.

Because of the relatively mild winter in Ontario, McLeod was able to get in some practice and refine his strategy for the coming season.

“It hasn’t been a disappointing offseason, but coming into 2016 we don’t have anything really major (to announce) on the performance side on the airplane,” McLeod said. “(But) this is the first time really in two years that I’ve had the opportunity to focus for a prolonged time on some of my strategy and tactics and my skill set. Not for just maintaining, but developing new skills and tactics and strategies and testing those and using the analytics we have to see whether a new way to do things is working.”

He continues to be sponsored by Garmin Virb cameras.

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