Everybody called her 'Mama'

In 1929, the year the first Women's Air Derby launched a new era for women in aviation, Marie "Mama" Carastro was born in Alabama. Over the next 97 years, her life would unfold alongside the history of women's air racing itself. She went on to compete in the Powder Puff Derby race and later in the Air Race Classic with her daughter Susan Carastro and later Susan's niece, Danielle Carastro. In 2004 at the age of 95 she is the oldest known competitor in the event's history. Few pilots have witnessed the evolution of women's air racing so completely. Even fewer have helped shape it.

"Mama," as she is known within the Air Race Classic community, earned the nickname not because of her age, but for the role she played in it. "She was the matriarch of the air race. Everybody knew she was everybody's Mama," Air Race Classic President Donna Harris said. For more than two decades, Mama returned each year not only to compete, but to encourage the next generation of women taking on one of general aviation's most demanding events.

"It's a competition, but it's also the joy of camaraderie," Harris said. That sense of community has defined the race since its earliest days. The Air Race Classic traces its lineage to the 1929 Women's Air Derby and the All-Woman Transcontinental Air Race, better known as the Powder Puff Derby. Today's competitors still fly under visual flight rules, navigating changing weather, fuel stops, and unfamiliar airports across thousands of miles. They race against carefully calculated handicap speeds, rewarding precision, planning, and decision making rather than simply flying the fastest airplane.

For Harris, that balance between competition and mentorship is what has allowed the race to endure. "We're celebrating our ninety-seventh anniversary," she said. "In three years, we'll celebrate our 100th anniversary."

Long before she became one of the race's most recognizable faces, Mama was a young woman with an unlikely dream. Her fascination with aviation began after her brother, a navigator aboard a Consolidated B–24 Liberator during World War II, was shot and killed over Ploiești, Romania. As she grew older, she decided she wanted to fly herself. The reaction, though, was typical for the era. She was told women could work as flight attendants, not pilots. Instead of accepting no for an answer, Mama decided to carve her own path in aviation. "I went and bought my own airplane to learn to fly," she said.

Mama found a Cessna 140 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, earned her private pilot certificate, and in 1957 refused to let aviation just be her hobby. Without a path into the airlines, she built hours the way many GA pilots did in the 1950s: She joined the Civil Air Patrol, flying search-and-rescue missions in Alabama. She later used the airplane to support her work as a registered dietitian, flying herself to consulting jobs inspecting hospitals and nursing homes 60 to 100 miles away rather than spending hours driving.

Flying simply became a part of her everyday life. She visited family by air, landing near her sister's farm outside Sixmile, Alabama, before small public airports were common throughout the region. Sometimes that meant touching down on a quiet country road. "My sister used to call it the Flying Jenny," Mama recalled. "My brother-in-law would block off the road for about a mile and a half. I'd land on the road, pull into their pasture, visit for a while, then take off again."

The stories sound almost impossible today, but they pertain to a different era of aviation. There was no GPS, no moving-map display, and no electronic flight bag. Navigation meant unfolding paper sectional charts across the kitchen table, drawing lines with a pencil, and checking progress with little more than a watch and landmarks on the ground. "She is the finest time-and-distance navigator you'll ever meet," daughter Susan said. "She navigated by rivers, highways, and railroad tracks, sometimes dropping low enough to read town names painted on water towers to confirm her position."

Mama has a collection of stories. Once while flying across Alabama, she found herself pushed off course by a storm moving in an unexpected direction. Rather than pressing on, she spotted an open field and landed to wait it out. Curious children gathered around the airplane as she kept the engine running, hoping not to have to hand-prop it before continuing home. She also met her husband, a U.S. Air Force pilot, during a mission with the Civil Air Patrol between Selma, Alabama, and Miami. They married, flew together for decades, and both eventually received the FAA's Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award in recognition of 50 years of safe flying.

In 1960, Mama flew in the Powder Puff Derby. Mama did not race again until 2004, as career, family, and everyday life took precedence. She continued flying for work and pleasure, and then her daughter suggested entering the Air Race Classic together.

For Susan, aviation was how their family spent their weekends. "We'd go to church on Sunday," she said. "Then we'd go to the airport." Her father taught her and her brother how to fly before either was old enough to drive. Mama taught her navigation.

When Susan asked about racing with her mother, her father wasn't convinced. He worried they had spent most of their flying close to home and weren't ready for the demands of a cross-country race through unfamiliar airspace and challenging weather. Like Mama, Susan wasn't persuaded. "The next year I asked again," she said. "I told Dad, 'We're doing it. We're both grown women.'" Eventually he came around and even contributed to planning every race, helping draw routes, measure distances, and prepare for the journey ahead. It became a family ritual as much as race strategy.

The Air Race Classic eventually became more than a mother-daughter tradition—it became a three-generation story. Susan's niece Danielle grew up around airplanes much the same way Susan had. Her brother owns a flight school in Biloxi, Mississippi, and Danielle earned her glider certificate at 15 before earning her private pilot certificate, instrument rating, and aircraft dispatcher certificate all before joining her aunt and Mama in the race.

In 2016, the trio competed together, becoming one of the few teams to span three generations. At 16, Danielle became the youngest competitor in the event's history. Almost a decade later, Mama, then 94, became the oldest pilot ever to race, flying left seat for half the course.

For Harris, the moment captured exactly what the Air Race Classic hopes to preserve. "We were just so excited," Harris said. "The collegiate teams are our future," Harris said. Of the Carastro family, she added, "Seeing generations race together, that's our history."

The race itself demands far more than simply flying from one airport to another. Pilots launch 30 seconds apart and spend four days making strategic decisions about weather, fuel, routing, and overnight stops while racing against handicapped speeds. Teams must remain flexible, often changing plans several times in a single day as conditions evolve. "It's a lot of problem solving," Harris said. "Trusting the team to work together is critical."

Those lessons became painfully real during the family’s most difficult race in 2023. With only the final leg remaining before finishing in Miami, Danielle awoke in the middle of the night with severe back pain and began vomiting. A hospital in Gainesville, Florida, diagnosed a kidney stone. Under Air Race Classic rules, every listed crew member must complete the race for the team to remain eligible. By then Mama had begun saying, "This may be my last one." Danielle knew what that meant. "She said, 'I can't stay in the hospital. This may be my grandmother's last race,'" Susan recalled. "She said, 'You better give me some pain medicine and I'm going.'"

After signing herself out of the hospital against medical advice, Danielle climbed into the back seat while Susan and Mama flew the final two-hour leg to Miami. Waiting on the ramp was Danielle's father, who had flown his own aircraft, a Cessna 182, from Biloxi, to meet them and take her home for medical care.

The medical issue subsequently interrupted Danielle's flying career, and she is currently working to regain her FAA medical certificate. Susan hopes they'll race together again. However, for Mama, that race marked the closing chapter of an extraordinary career. The following year, when Mama decided her racing days were over, Air Race Classic organizers found another role for her. Instead of pinning on a race number, Mama stood at the opening banquet and handed each team its route charm before departure.

This year's lineup included one pilot a month shy of 20 and two 76-year-old competitors, one of whom finished third. Although Mama no longer competed, her presence kept her connected to the community she helped shape. This year's Air Race Classic attracted racers from collegiate flight programs to retired airline pilots. Severe weather forced nearly half the field to withdraw, but Harris said the event also demonstrated why its future remains bright.

First-time competitors can request a "mother bird," an experienced racer who guides them through everything from race logistics to weather planning and decision making. That experience has not gone unnoticed: While attending this year's Women in Aviation International conference, Harris spoke with airline recruiters who told her they actively look for Air Race Classic participation on a résumé.

As the race continues to evolve, electronic engine monitoring has allowed further refinement of aircraft handicaps. Harris said future regulatory changes, including the Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification, may also create paths for additional aircraft categories. The organization's leadership will meet to begin planning not only for those changes but also for the 100th anniversary celebration in 2029

Reaching that milestone will require more than racers. The Air Race Classic is operated entirely by volunteers. Harris said the organization is looking for everything from host airports and race volunteers to webmasters, writers, designers, photographers, sponsors, and community partners. "We're open to anything and everything," Harris said.

For Harris, preserving the race means preserving opportunities for future generations of women to challenge themselves, build lifelong friendships, and discover what they're capable of. For the Carastro family the future is already beginning. Amelia Marie Carastro was welcomed into the family on December 2. Amelia is too young yet to climb into an airplane, but she has already inherited nearly a century of aviation history. Whether Amelia will ever race is impossible to know. But if she does, she will follow a path first opened by the woman who bought her own plane to learn to fly and became simply known as Mama.

For results of this year’s Air Race Classic and information on how to volunteer or contribute in other ways, visit the website airraceclassic.org.