A couple weeks ago, the aviation community woke up to the latest editions of the VFR Sectional charts from the FAA in their EFBs and had a surprise on their hands: it was suddenly much, much more difficult to read the charts. The colors had changed!

Where the difference between things like Class B airspace boundaries and Victor airways had once been unambiguously clear shades of blue, they were now all kind of similar muddled variations on green.

Comparison of the pre-October-2025 digital sectional chart to the October 2025 digital sectional chart. Note the change from blues to greens for various features, notable the Class B airspace and Victor airways.

Surely it was a mistake. After all, the FAA has a specification for the VFR sectional and TAC charts. The colors in the specification have been stable since at least 2022, and the blues in that specification are indeed Pantone 307U with various halftones; no mention of greens.

And indeed, in short order, the FAA acknowledged that the colors were changed a bit in the digital versions and even took the extraordinary step of reissuing the October 2, 2025 series of sectional charts with slightly tweaked colors (official notice here).

Except… that didn’t put things back to the way they were. Still green, just slightly darker green. No blues, at least not outside of water features.

Reading the FAA’s announcement closer, it turned out that their goal was to make the digital versions of the charts match the print versions more closely. To a rounding error, nobody in aviation in the USA actually uses printed charts anymore, me included. It took a bit of effort for me to track down print versions of both the new October 2, 2025 edition of the Denver sectional as well as an earlier version from October 2023 so that I could compare them to the digital versions everyone really uses.

Wouldn’t you know it: both the new and the old printed sectionals matched the “green” of the new digital sectionals! We’d all been so focused on the digital versions for so long that we’d all forgotten what the printed versions even looked like.

Comparison of scans of the paper maps from October 2023 and October 2025. Note that the colors turn out to be really similar, and that the pre-October-2025 scan *doesn’t* have the blue tones of the digital version.

In fact, the only real differences between the old and new printed charts are that the terrain-height browns are a bit darker on the newer ones and that they switched the printing from spot color to process color.  I’m not sure why the browns changed, since the spec didn’t; it doesn’t seem to be a gamut issue. The change from spot to process color seems to have happened at some point between October 2023 and October 2025, but the result is pretty similar in print.

The October 2025 sectionals are printed with process color. Earlier sectionals, such as the October 2023 edition that I had on hand, were printed with spot color. The difference is shown in these zoomed-in portions of the scans of the new and old charts.

The color issue for the blues seems to be solely about the digital versions.

As best I can tell, the digital versions of the charts prior to October 2, 2025 used pure hues according to some sort of hierarchy, with no mixing of hues. For example, the dark blue of a Class B airspace boundary had high priority, so it was shown on the chart as just dark blue. Similarly, the Victor airways were moderately high priority, so they were depicted as just light blue with no mixing in of the underlying yellows or browns. Stated differently, higher-priority colors would effectively mask out lower-priority colors.

For the October 2, 2025 digital editions, this approach seems to have changed. The hues depicted in the digital versions of the charts came to be mixed in the same way that they already had been on the printed charts: blues overlying yellows mixed to became greens, for example; no masking, no hierarchy, no priorities.

I think the FAA misunderstood the criticism of the new October 2, 2025 digital chart releases. People don’t want the digital versions to match the printed version more accurately. Instead, people want the digital versions to go back to the old way of masking, such as using pure blues instead of mixed greens for Class B airspaces (among other places).

As it stands, the new-style digital charts are really difficult to read. It’s bad in Denver, but it’s a disaster in places like Philadelphia where everything just melds together into one indecipherable mess. The only practical solution is to turn on things like digital airspace overlays in the EFBs.

Maybe we’ll all get used to it; after all, the printed charts have been this way for a long time. Or maybe somebody will realize that the old-style digital depictions really were superior and all of the color depictions will move back to that.

I’m a fan of 24-hour endurance races in motorsports. Since 2020, I’ve been contesting the true-24 race run by the 24 Hours of Lemons, first as a part of another team, and since 2021 with our own car. Here’s our 1999 Miata endurance car showing off its fancy lights:

Our 1999 Miata showing off its fancy lights in the pits before a 24 Hours of Lemons true-24 race in September 2023 (Photo: Sean)

One thing I’ve noticed is that it can be hard to find lists of all of the true-24-hour (or longer) races. To my knowledge, there are currently 10 such races for cars and at least 5 for motorcycles, though I know that my list of motorcycle races is definitely incomplete. Here are the races I’m aware of:

Cars:

24 Hours of Daytona – January – GT and prototype cars – Daytona International Speedway (road course), Florida, USA – IMSA

24H Dubai – January – GT cars – Dubai Autodrome, Dubai, UAE – 24H Series

Qlispe Classic 24 – May – Production cars – Qlispe Raceway Park, Washington, USA – Independent

24 Hours of Le Mans – June – GT and prototype cars – Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France – ACO

24 Hours of Spa – June – GT cars – Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium – GT World Challenge

24h Nurburgring – June – Production and GT cars – Nurburgring Nordschleife, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany – ADAC

The 25:01 (25 hours plus 1 minute) – June – Production cars – Thunderhill Raceway, Willows, California, USA, – 24 Hours of Lemons

25h Fun Cup – July – Spec Beetle-silhouette cars – Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium – Fun Cup

ChampCar 24 Hour Classic – August – Production cars – Virginia International Raceway, Virginia, USA – ChampCar

24 Hours of Lemons True-24 – September – Production cars – High Plains Raceway, Colorado, USA – 24 Hours of Lemons

24H Barcelona – September – GT cars – Circuit de Bercelona-Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain – 24H Series

NASA 25 Hours (formerly the 25 Hours of Thunderhill) – November – Production cars – Ozarks International, Missouri, USA – NASA

Motorcycles (incomplete):

24 Heures Motos – April – Superbikes and similar – Bugatti Circuit, Le Mans, France – ACO

Vespa The Resistance – May – Vespa and Lambretta scooters – Zuera International Circuit, Zaragoza, Spain – Pinasco

Perry Mountain 24 Hour Challenge – June – Dirt bikes – Plantersville, Alabama – Perry Mountain Motorcycle Club

Bol d’or – September – Various classes – Circuit Paul Richard, Le Castellet, France – FIM EWC

Now, all of this isn’t to take away from the other great endurance races of the world, such as the Baja 1000 or the Dakar. Those simply aren’t 24-hour races in the sense meant here. Also, I’m vaguely aware of at least several karting 24-hour endurance races, but I’ll admit that I haven’t looked into them in depth yet.

Know of a true-24-hour (or more) motorsport race (even karting!) that I didn’t list here? Email me! I’ll update this list as new information comes to my attention.

Last update: July 4, 2025 (added 25h Fun Cup)

Sean and I were an hour east of Avoca, Iowa near Des Moines when it became apparent that we would not make it to Cedar Rapids on our extant tank of fuel. I was driving; it was Sean’s truck, and our F1000  race car was in our 24ft trailer behind us.

We were towing to Road America, a trip we’ve done many times, and we really wanted to make our next stop at a particular Kwik Star truck stop on US-151. (They had genuinely good food.) The distance to that Kwik Star: 102 miles. The estimated range per the truck’s computer: 100 miles.

We needed a draft to make it.

The key to a good draft is that you initially need to go just a little faster than your target speed so that you can come up upon a draftee that’s meeting that target on the nose. I considered a few prospect semis, but they were all going too slow. A few more miles ticked by. Then we came upon a blue tractor with an unassuming off-white trailer. Haz-mat, per his placards, “1906” and “1760” – cleaning solutions.

I hopped into his dirty air at a respectful yet efficient distance and instantly saw our mileage rise. He maintained speed with what seemed like cruise control; I modulated to hold station with my right foot.

As with many budding relationships, things soon got a little rocky. Truckers generally don’t like being drafted, especially by non-semis. When the two of our vehicles came up behind a slow-moving truck a few minutes in, my draftee merged into the left lane not far ahead of a passenger car, preventing me from following. He then slowed way down, giving me plenty of room to go in front of him and onward. I chose to stay behind the truck in the right lane, betting that my target wouldn’t like going so slowly for very long. Indeed, he sped back up to his previous pace, and I maneuvered back to my place behind him.

Things might have stayed somewhat strained, but for two truths: first, we came upon more traffic a few miles later, and second, my draftee was courteously aggressive about staying in the right lane except for passing. Of course, the problem with being courteously aggressive about staying in the right lane is that it’s easy to be screwed by traffic in the left lane when someone ahead is driving slowly in the right.

An opportunity presented itself when my draftee changed to the left lane for a pass, I followed, and he returned to the right after completing the pass. I, however, stayed in the left lane, as I could see he would very soon come up behind slow-moving traffic in the right lane. I could also see several cars behind me waiting to pounce. So, to the minor detriment of the cars behind me, I matched his speed but in the left lane, staying slightly back from his rear door. “I’m going to play some 2D chess,” I told Sean. I’d meant “3D chess”.

Sure enough, a minute or two later, he came up on the traffic in the right lane, and I slowed slightly more so as to make a big, obvious gap for him to come back left. Not wanting to be too pushy, I deliberately chose not to flash my lights in signal. He hesitated a moment, then politely merged back left in front of me, and promptly gave me the “hazard light blink”.

“Oh good, we’re friends again!” I told Sean.

And so it went. I’d draft him, then when we came up on traffic, I’d go left and block for him so he could move over without slowing down. He’d go over, give me a couple hazard blinks, and then we’d make the pass together.

This continued along I-80 for over an hour, then onto I-380 towards Cedar Rapids.

I almost dropped the ball on I-380 with a nearly missed block. When I realized the window was closing, I might have been slightly aggressive about moving over to, let’s be honest, cut off a car that was steaming up the outside. “Sorry!” I thought to the car now behind me — hey, I had to protect my friend.

When we got within a few miles of the US-151 turnoff from I-380, I slowed well-down, stayed right, and my semi friend went ahead in the left lane. He gave one more set of hazard blinks in goodbye, and traffic soon blocked my view of him.

I thought that was then end of it, but no! Like the awkwardness of discovering you’ve parked in the same direction as an acquaintance after already completing your goodbyes, it turned out that he too was following US-151, and we came up behind him again on the ramp. I wasn’t sure what to do; I didn’t want to be weird about it.

When we both made yet another turn to continue along US-151, I figured, “Eh, why not?” and we fell back into old patterns.

Thanks to the draft, our mileage in Sean’s truck had improved from 6.2 mpg to 7.5 mpg, and our target Kwik Star came into view with an estimated 35 miles of range left.

Sean and I had shared the previous four turns with our big-rig friend, but not our fifth: at the light for the Kwik Star, he stopped in the rightmost straight-through lane, and we slid into the right-turn-only lane.

As we came up alongside his rig, I slowed more than was needed and looked to my left at his cab with a smile and a wave. Inside, I could see his head turned back at me, a wave on his hand as well. He gave a couple quick toots of his horn in salute, and as his light turned green as we turned right.

Our highway friend lumbered off into the distance; we will never see him again.

For the second time in my life, I have been privileged to view a total solar eclipse.

With the weather forecasts favoring roughly Illinois in the week or so prior to the eclipse, but with considerable uncertainty still in the cards, Sean and I chose to drive to St. Louis from Denver so that we’d be well-staged for a last-minute location decision. The bartender at our hotel on the west side of town enthusiastically promoted southeastern Missouri as an option; the morning of eclipse day, the final model runs favored that approach. Thus, we headed to just northwest of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, exactly on the line of maximum totality duration.

We set up shop about three hours before the show at a prime location just off the road, flanked on both sides by an increasing number of fellow eager eclipse watchers. Our telescope, which saw its last meaningful use seven years earlier at the previous total eclipse, once again was assembled, aligned, and outfitted with a solar filter cap.

The temperature was very pleasant. Wispy cirrus clouds caused some concern early but blew out after a couple hours. The weather, which had been the source of so much worry and uncertainty, was absolutely perfect.

We talked with our neighbors — young kids, old retirees, middle-agers aplenty — and shared views through our telescope. All were excited about what they were about to see. Many had seen the 2017 total eclipse, which had also passed nearby, and that experience had left them yearning for another hit. I have yet to meet anyone, anywhere, ever, who has actually seen a total eclipse and had anything other than the most superlative praise for the sight.

In due time, the partial eclipse began. We watched the progression through the telescope. One by one, the several sunspots on our star fell out of view as the disc of our moon traveled along. A digital light meter that we brought told the same story in numerical terms, with 130,000 lux falling steadily to 65,000, 30,000, and lower. The world became noticeably dim. The wind, which had been light and warm, shifted around and became cool.

At about 95% obscuration, birds and inspects began singing, instinctually convinced it must be nearly nightfall. I had obviously heard stories about such things, and surely the same must have happened in Wyoming in 2017, but it seems I had forgotten the first-hand experience of it.

The sliver of the sun shrank more and more, then suddenly: totality! All around the horizon was sunset.

Flanked by Jupiter and Venus, the brilliant white silken fingers of the corona surrounded the impossibly black perfect circle of the moon. People cheered, clapped, and wept. I know I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed and choked up; it was just so profoundly beautiful and moving.

The darkness of the black spot of the moon is at once both the most anticipated and least expected feature of the experience. The rest of the sky is a very deep navy blue, but that spot; well, it’s just impossibly black. Even knowing the math and physics of it, I found myself connecting across time to the unknowing ancients who must have puzzled over the sight. The sun was there, then suddenly it wasn’t there. The brightest thing in our existence became the darkest thing imaginable, all in a moment.

Through the telescope, the solar filter now removed, the texture of the corona became almost palpable, and the several prominences which were just barely visible to the naked eye became astonishing twists of red ribbon.

As with the previous eclipse, I deliberately chose not to photograph it. Totality is fleetingly short, there will be plenty of photos from other people, and in any case even the very best photos and videos don’t come anywhere even remotely near to doing the experience justice.

Four minutes and eleven seconds after it disappeared, the sun began its return. Like an LED projector headlight in the distance, a bright pinpoint of light emerged and cast shadows like a full moon. Rapidly, color and warmth returned to the world. Sean remarked that it was like somebody was bringing up the house lights in a theater.

A moment passed; several people clapped and cheered. All of us gathered were in smiles, the unanimous agreement being that the natural show had been top-notch. Whatever expenses had been incurred in time or money had been worth it.

With that gravitas out of the way, we quickly chucked the telescope in the truck and sped off to beat the traffic. If everyone else hadn’t had the same idea, it might have worked, but fortunately, with the aid of old-school map reading and four-wheel drive, we were able to route around the worst of it and make it back to Denver about 15 hours later.

“This is going to be expensive.” That was the first thought that went through my mind after I came to a stop.

I had just crashed a formula car in the iconic Corkscrew turn at Laguna Seca, and the car I was driving wasn’t mine.

Me driving down the Corkscrew, before the incident

Sean and I had been at that iconic Northern California track for the previous couple of days doing one of the racing schools there. It was an arrive-and-drive program: we simply showed up with our driving gear, and they furnished the cars.

Our machines were Formula Renault 1600s made by Tatuus, with 1.6 L inline-4 engines, sequential manual gearboxes, and carbon fiber tubs. Wings (sort of) and slicks, too. They were faster than my Formula Vee that Sean had borrowed for his first track experience a few weeks earlier, but slower than my F1000.

Despite the unusually hot and humid October weather, we took advantage of every millisecond behind the wheel that the school program offered. So enthusiastic was Sean that he was the first driver of the weekend to run afoul of Laguna’s infamously strict noise limits.

We got to know the cars better, and we became increasingly comfortable pushing them through the turns.

Like the Corkscrew.

Sean (silver car in foreground) is ahead of me (red car in background) at Turn 6. Or, from my perspective, I was waiting to pass him. (That is a completely accurate description of the situation, right Sean?)

The Corkscrew is unquestionably the most famous corner at Laguna and easily in contention for being the most famous among all corners at all race circuits in the world. It’s a sharp blind left-hander that transitions into a moderately fast right-hand turn at its exit. That would be pretty ordinary, but what sets it apart is the elevation change from entry to exit: a loss of 60 vertical feet at an incredible grade of about -15%. Purists might scoff that turns 2, 9, and 11 are tougher to execute optimally, but that takes nothing away from the Corkscrew itself.

Sean driving his F150 down the Corkscrew during the track tour

Near the end of the last track session of the last day of the school, I decided to get a bit more aggressive in the Corkscrew. Unfortunately, I lined up on the wrong visual reference tree for the turn-in.

The ground fell away, like normal, causing the car to get light — also like normal — but the slightly sub-optimal line led to a harder “landing” than usual. Nothing would have come of it but for a bolt in the front suspension that had been invisibly edging towards fatigue failure. The hard landing exceeded the strength of the remaining cross-sectional area in that bolt, the bolt sheared, and the front-left suspension collapsed. The now-unrestrained front-left pushrod punched upward and sent the shock cover flying.

Surprised but running on instinct, I kept it pointed straight and brought the car to a controlled stop just off the track surface. That gave me some time to sit there worrying about what I’d done to the car.

Fortunately, once the car got back to the paddock, the hallmarks of fatigue failure (beachmarks, light corrosion in a thread root, and a large fast-fracture zone) were clearly visible on the portion of the bolt that had stayed with the car. Would it have given way without my slight excursion beyond track limits? Hard to say. On the other hand, the race school owner was apologetic about the bolt being degraded in the first place.

Without either of us losing too much face, and with no real damage to the car other than perhaps the fiberglass shock cover, we came to an amicable agreement that everything was fine and engaged in a pleasant chat about racing.