Emergency runway racing key

Fred Telling, CEO and Board chairman of the group that produces the National Championship Air Races, said an important key is being turned for the Roswell event.

Speaking to the Roswell Rotary Club, Telling said the Brown Brothers Ranch, over which race pilots fly, “is allowing us to build an emergency runway on their ranch property.”

The lack of an emergency runway had resulted in two popular classes of air racers — the Sport Class and the Unlimited Class — failing to compete in the 2025 Air Races.

The Sport Class is composed of aircraft currently being manufactured, while the Unlimited Class is made up of World War II aircraft.

“Right now, we probably have 80 aircraft participating, but I believe we will have over 100 aircraft for races this year,” Telling said, adding, “I’m optimistic we’ll have at least 12 in the Unlimited Class.”

A big draw at this year’s Air Races on Sept. 16-20 will be the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds precision flying team.

Telling

 

The team will be visible on Sept. 17 and 18 when they do “full big holiday practice flights, and then on Sept. 19 and 20 when they repeat their show.”

Telling said that one of the days, the Thunderbird crews will be given a 

police escort “down Main Street from their hotel to the airfield.”

He said one of the bigger challenges for the Air Races is hotel space. In addition to Roswell hotels and motels to house the estimated 75,000-80,000 people expected at the races, RV sites will be available at the airport and in the community.

Telling said Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell will be showing movies for RV campers on several nights at its campus near the airport, as well as making its swimming pool and gymnasium available.

He complimented Artesia, 40 miles south of Roswell, “for organizing a band and other activities nearly every night. They had things going on in the street for the people who were staying down there. The town was very welcoming, and it was great.”

The National Championship Air Races are produced every September by the Reno Air Racing Association. The event was founded in Northern Nevada, where it became an institution and the pinnacle of air racing before moving to Roswell.

UFO Museum major Roswell attraction

The International UFO Museum and Research Center in downtown Roswell features a park at the city's major highway intersection.

Roswell is fortunate to have two of the largest tourism draws — one old and one new — in the Southwest.

The National Championship Air Races in Roswell, which moved from Reno to New Mexico, expects to attract 75,000-80,000 people during its Sept. 16-20 run.

This will be the second year the air races have been held in Roswell.

The other and older major draw is the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which last year attracted 191,566 visitors.

Typically, the UFO Museum attracts 245,000 visitors annually, though this figure fluctuates, usually with gasoline prices.

While attendance in 2025 was down around 7 percent from the previous year, the number of visitors was up in April and May to 13,811 and 16,013, respectively.

This is pretty normal in the tourism trade, which relies on regional visitors who usually drive to museums.

The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs reports its properties showed a decline last year, reflecting a “national trend of declining museum attendance in 2025.”

Among the department’s museums are the N.M. History Museum, the N.M. Museum of Art, the Museum of International Folk Art, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, all in Santa Fe.

The Department of Cultural Affairs also operates the N.M. Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, the N.M. Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces, and the N.M. Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque.

For decades, Roswell’s UFO Museum has usually ranked as the most-visited museum in New Mexico. That comparison is difficult to make now, as the Department of Cultural Affairs recently reported, “No official 2025 attendance figure for all New Mexico state museums is available.”

The UFO Museum, which started out displaying pieces of paper thumbtacked to the walls in a storefront, now occupies a one-block site in downtown Roswell.

The site includes the museum and theater, one of the world’s largest libraries on the UFO phenomenon, several parking areas, and a park.

The UFO Museum has also spawned the Roswell UFO Festival, which this year will run July 2-4.

John Quiñones, ABC News correspondent who reports for Good Morning America, was part of a live sequence this month from Roswell. He is shown at the UFO Museum with Cat Martinez (left), assistant director, and Karen Jaramillo, Museum director.

Air races expect huge attendance

Roswell Deputy City Manager Bobbi Thompson said she expects 75,000-80,000 people to be in Roswell for the 2026 National Championship Air Races.

Thompson, a longtime Board member of the group that produces the National Championship Air Races in Roswell, said several factors are contributing to her expectations of high attendance at the Sept. 16-20 races.

Speaking to the Roswell Rotary Club, she said one reason is “we have the two classes that were not here last year, the Sport Class and the Unlimited Class.

“The Sport Class is aircraft that are manufactured today. Unlimited, for the most part, are World War II fighter aircraft. Your P-51s, Sea Furys, and even a couple of Yaks, the Russian fighters.

“And then, to make things even better this year, besides seven classes of air racing, we’re introducing a course to get certified by the FAA, and that is what we're calling our Mach course. So that’s 600-mile-per-hour racing,” Thompson said, adding that is 700 feet a second.

Also expected to boost attendance is the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds precision flying team.

Thompson said the first Thunderbird F-16 aircraft “will arrive on Wednesday, the 16th, and then the other seven jets will arrive on Thursday, and a C-130 will come in with the 70 crew members that accompany them to maintain and take care of the aircraft and the teams.”

Roswell and the air races are expected to receive national publicity when the “Good Morning America” television show arrives in Roswell later in June.

“They’re doing a series of programs to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great country by doing a program produced in every state. For New Mexico, Roswell,” Thompson said.

She currently serves as the Reno Air Racing Association’s vice president of strategic planning.

The National Championship Air Races are produced every September by the Reno Air Racing Association. The event was founded in Northern Nevada, where it became an institution and the pinnacle of air racing before moving to Roswell.

Thompson’s aviation career spans more than 40 years. She is a 4,500-hour pilot, rated in single- and multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and has more than 35 years of experience producing air shows.