The Making of the America’s Challenge

Left: Mark Sullivan and flying partner Cheri White, ready to launch in the 2013 America’s Challenge. Below: The America’s Challenge is go for launch (2019).

through a second night. Half of Europe was behind the Iron Curtain, and even when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 getting into some of these countries was not easy.

The American team of David Levin and James Herschend won the Gordon Bennett in 1992. This gave the United States the right to host the Gordon Bennett in 1993. I talked the Balloon Fiesta Board into submitting a bid to the Balloon Federation of America to host the event. I was selected as the Gordon Bennett Event Director and was placed in charge of organizing it. This was the first time the United States had hosted a Gordon Bennett since 1933, when the race was held in Chicago Il. Since 1993, the Gordon Bennett has launched at the Balloon Fiesta three times, in 1999, 2005, and 2008.

Twenty balloons from nine countries entered the 1993 Albuquerque Gordon Bennett race. Josef Starkbaum and Rainer Rohsler from Austria won the event with a distance of 1832 km (1,138 miles). This was Starkbaum’s sixth Gordon Bennett victory and his longest gas balloon flight. Josef’s three-night flight is what convinced me that Albuquerque was the place to fly distance in gas balloons and is why the America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race was started.

I was very pleased the Balloon Fiesta Board unanimously supported my idea of holding the America’s Challenge starting in 1995. We had already been granted an FAI (World Air Federation) sanction to host the Eighth World Gas Balloon Championship in 1994. So, our new event to prove Albuquerque was the place to “Go the Distance” would have to wait one more year.

Since the America’s Challenge started in 1995, pilots flying in our event have achieved the majority of distance flights recognized by the FAI Ballooning Commission statistics on Notable Flights. The longest flight ever achieved in a Gordon Bennett race since the event started in 1906 was flown out of Albuquerque by Bob Berben and BenoÎt Siméons of Belgium for a distance of 3400 km (2,112 miles) to Squatec, Quebec, Canada. The longest flight in the America’s Challenge was by Nicolas Tièche and Laurent Sciboz of Switzerland for a distance of 3670 km (2,280 miles), with a landing near Labrador City, Labrador.

Pilots who have flown out of Albuquerque in the America’s Challenge and the four Gordon Bennetts we organized have flown a staggering 97 two night flights, 43 three night flights and 4 four night flights.

This will be our 25th America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race this year. There have been so many great adventures and stories over the years. I am very proud to have been part of such a successful Balloon Fiesta event. PHOTO: VICTOR BANTA