The Red Bull Air Race World Championship for aerobatic pilots returns after a three year absence. Pilots will compete and maneuver their planes between air gate pylons between the 12th and 13th of April in Rovinj, Croatia. The championship will be all the more interesting for Slovenia as a 43-year-old Slovene, Peter Podlunšek, will also be competing. His flying career began when his family moved from Hrastnik to the Prekmurje region, which has a long tradition in flying. Peter's father and grandfather always wished to become pilots but never had the possibility. Peter took advantage of the new situation and began with modeling planes which then led to sports flying (more than 1000 hours of flying in a glider). He then finally moved on to aerobatic flying.

"This will be my first competition. I realize that the differences between pilots are very small. We could already see that at the first race in Abu Dhabi. It would be ungrateful to make any predictions. There won't be any low-skilled pilots. The whole elite will be gathered in Rovinj. There will be six Challenger Cup pilots. Of course I would like to win a spot on the winning podium at least once this season. We'll see how that comes out after the last race in China," is what the Slovene pilot said about his season goals. "It was a great honour and small miracle at the same time to be invited at the training camp in 2009. It's like having a Slovene racer in Formula 1. Our success is even bigger considering how small our marketing potential is," Podlunšek added.