Basking Ridge, NJ – October 21, 2011 – MATHESON sponsored the America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta held in Albuquerque, New Mexico from October 1 - 9, 2011. MATHESON has been sponsoring this event for over a decade. The America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race is a cross-country duration and distance race, and this year the event featured both hydrogen and helium balloons. MATHESON supplied and filled four hydrogen and four helium balloons for the race. This year’s winning team consisted of members from the UK and Australia. Their trip took 71 hours, 32 minutes, and they traveled a distance of 974 miles, landing 65 miles from Minot, North Dakota.
This is the world’s largest premier ballooning event, attracting more than 800 balloons, and it is the most photographed event in the world. It is estimated that over one and a half million spectators were on-site for the 2011 event.
Gas balloons became part of the Balloon Fiesta in 1981. In 1993 the Balloon Fiesta hosted the 37th annual Coupe Aèronautique Gordon Bennett, the world's oldest and most prestigious gas balloon race. In 1994, the Albuquerque Fiesta hosted the 8th World Gas Balloon Championship. In 1995, the Balloon Fiesta launched the America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race, a distance race that broke distance records, dating back to 1912.
MATHESON is a single source for industrial, medical, specialty and electronic gases, gas handling equipment, high performance purification systems, engineering and gas management services, and on-site gas generation with a mission to deliver innovative solutions for global customer requirements.
MATHESON is the largest subsidiary of the Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation Group, the largest Japanese supplier of industrial gases and one of the five largest suppliers of industrial, specialty, and electronics gases in the world.