Red Bull pulls the plug on air races

There’s irony — somewhere — in an announcement from Red Bull.

Even as the company is bringing Flugtag back to St. Paul — in which people imbibe on decidedly not Red Bull while watching people plunge into the Mississippi River in their homemade airplanes that never had a prayer of not succumbing to gravity, it’s giving up on things that actually fly, it announced Wednesday.

It didn’t give much of a reason why for its decision to end the Red Bull Air Races after the current season.

Red Bull has decided not to continue the Red Bull Air Race World Championship beyond the 2019 season. The remaining races this year are: Kazan, Russia, 15-16 June; Lake Balaton, Hungary, 13-14 July and Chiba, Japan, 7-8 September.

There have been more than 90 races since Red Bull Air Race began in 2003. These have given the world’s most exceptional pilots the opportunity to compete in high speed flying at low altitude with extreme maneuvers. The Red Bull Air Race provided sports entertainment of highest quality but did not attract the level of outside interest as many other Red Bull events across the world.

Red Bull thanks the pilots, their teams, partners, the host cities as well as the Red Bull employees for all they have done to make these enjoyable and memorable events.