The winner of the gas balloon race is the one who flies the farthest distance.

Their ballooning résumé includes four wins in the America’s Challenge long-distance gas balloon race, and third- and fourth-place finishes in previous Gordon Bennett competitions.

Another U.S. entry in the race is the team of Mark Sullivan and Cheri White, both of whom have a long list of accolades: Sullivan holds the record for the most competition gas balloon flights — 25 Gordon Bennett flights and 21 America’s Challenge races, while White has flown in the Gordon Bennett 14 times, the most ever by a female pilot.

It also serves as the launching venue for the America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race, one of the world’s premier distance races for gas balloons.

Parks said organizers had already hit internal benchmarks for this year’s fiesta, having sold a lot of tickets before the outbreak and attracting a full slate of pilots for the fiesta and the annual cross-country gas balloon race that launches that week.