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One person is dead after a single jet went down during the championship round of the Reno Air Races on Sunday afternoon. Fred Telling, the CEO and president of the Reno Air Racing Association, said the crash happened on lap 3 of 6 during the Jet Gold Race on outer pylon 5. The pilot's name was not released by officials during a news conference.

Greetings fellow freepers of all stripes and shades! It's been a long long time since I last posted anything that was not fraught with frustration towards our "representatives" in congress or outright rage towards unelected government officials who have hijacked our constitutional republic. Well, it's time to come up for air. I am taking my oldest son (now 28) on a road trip that we had planned way back in 2009 but couldn't afford to because OBAMA. We are going to be attending the Reno International Air Races from the 12th to the 16th. We'll be driving down tomorrow at...

Reno, Nev. – The first one-hour episode featuring last year’s 53rd National Championship Air Races will air next Saturday, March 11th at 11am pacific time on NBC Sports Network – exactly 10 days from today. A short preview clip can be viewed here.

What a great time! What a crowd! What amazing racing! This was the best year in a long time! The week started out with great weather but lots of smoke from the many fires in California. When the wind blew in, the smoke blew out – but the winds brought a new set of issues. The wind was so bad on Sunday, several classes had to stand down from their allotted course time because the winds were above their limits – as addressed in the Rules of Competition. But by Monday, everyone was back on the course and qualifying began...

At the end of the closest race in the 51-year history of the National Championship Air Races, seven-time race champion Tiger Destefani came within a spinner’s length of stealing first place from rival and one-time protégé Steve Hinton. The photo finish ... came at the end of Saturday’s Unlimited Gold Race, run to determine positions for the final championship event the following day, Sunday, September 14. After flying a high course for all eight laps, Destefani, in the red-and-white Mustang Strega—which Destefani owns and Hinton flew to four straight Gold wins beginning in 2009—traded altitude for speed and plunged toward...

The Reno Fire Chief tells CBS13 the plane fell apart in the air, as it was flying low through an obstacle course during the qualifying stage of the Reno National Air Race Championships. The plane quickly hit the ground, killing Lee Behel, 64 of San Jose, a man well-known in the air racing community.

What can be done to save the Reno Air Races? This is the question posed to me by so many of the Air Racing fans. We know changes are being made – but – are they enough. Are these changes coming too late, what are the signs we should be looking for to see if the changes are working? ... Tell me why, the day after Steven Hinton won his 5th Championship he was not being interviewed on Good Morning America, Today and the Tonight Show? This young man has unprecedented achievements and no one knows his name. I’ve said...

*** Since this column was written, Mike Houghton, the President of RARA has been let go. The Board of Directors will be taking over the day to day operations. We plan to continue coverage of the Future of Air Racing. Keep the faith, fans.  Since the Galloping Ghost crash of 2011, the Air Races have been plagued with financial concerns and rumors about closing the doors. In the last few months, Mike Houghton, RARA President, has been talking about this year’s event being in jeopardy if $500,000 was not raised by December 15th. Just in the nick of time, we...

Well, the 50th is in the books. The same kid won, but he was riding a different horse. There was good, there was bad, and there was not a lot of ugly, thankfully. Let’s get started with the review. The UWRC (AKA Unlimiteds) competitors were few and far between, with only 15 racers showing up for race week. But, the big iron was there. Returning champ, Strega, along with Voodoo, Rare Bear, Czech Mate, 232 and Dreadnaught all have the pedigree. All of them could win; nearly all of them HAVE won. But, it was Bob Button’s year --- finally.

It's that time again. The crews are making the final touches on the race planes and the pilots are testing and growing more focused every day. The drama that is Air Racing is ready to play out in front of our incredibly loyal fans. Let’s take a look at who will be there and what to expect...

With all the drama surrounding the transition from the old Unlimited Class to the new, the fans are forgetting about the other five classes of racing. I've decided to give focus this month’s column on the other classes, the innovators and racers who we don’t hear about on the forums. Who they are and what to look for this year – but let’s start with why the fans aren't as enamored with these classes, and why maybe they should be. Air Racing through the years was always about technical advancements -- especially for civil aviation. Among the first races in...

Flying around an 8-mile track at 500 miles per hour is something most of us probably can't comprehend. But for many pilots, it's a lot like Christmas, in September. "The biggest part of that is not so much getting and opening up the presents, it's seeing your family," Will Whiteside said. "These guys and gals up here have become, over the past ten years for me, my family." "If you miss it, you feel a void in your life," Marilyn Dash said. "When I started racing about ten years ago, I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my September except...

Keeping up with the news surrounding the Reno Air Races this year has been exhausting. Racers and fans alike have so many questions, i.e., are we racing, what changes will we see, who will be there, who won’t, will the fans notice any changes? These are all good questions. I hope that I have, through this column, helped everyone understand what the process has been following the horrific event of September 16, 2011. I have tried to listen to the questions the fans have been asking and answer them here.

Link only per agreement with Gannett Company.

A blue ribbon panel of experts reviewing the deadly crash at last year's National Championship Air Races in Reno is making a number of recommendations to make the event safer but none would prevent the competition from continuing as scheduled in September, officials told The Associated Press.

The National Transportation and Safety Board Tuesday released an interim report on its investigation into the 2011 air racing crash that killed 11 and injured scores in Reno. Deborah Hersman, NTSB chairman, said, "Our investigation found that this pilot in this airplane had never flown this fast on this course." ... Before the crash, filmmaker Christian Fry had just finished shooting "Air Racers 3-D." He'd been a fan for years. Fry said, "It was one of those events when the minute you walk through the gate, you go, 'Wow, this is something special.' And I just knew that I wanted...

Despite suffering severe injuries in the worst air race accident in the U.S. in more than a half a century, some victims have told their lawyer they would like to attend future races.

It will be a while before the NTSB issues its findings about the crash of The Galloping Ghost at the Reno Air Races this year. There were so many witnesses, however, and photographic and video coverage of the disastrous accident was so clear, that it did not take long for theorizing about the cause to converge on a single scenario.

...Bodies were strewn everywhere. Those who were unharmed scrambled in panic as the public address announcer attempted to calm them. That’s when Apfelbaum’s natural instinct kicked in. As an E.R. doc, Apfelbaum has seen his share of carnage. He has been among the first responders to air disasters that left no survivors. However, the aftermath of the Reno crash was unlike anything he had ever seen. Knowing that the available EMS crews would be overwhelmed, he hugged Julia, leapt over a fence and hitched a ride on a cart to get to the scene faster...

The family of a Texas man killed when a racing aircraft crashed into spectators in the National Championship Air Races in Reno filed a $25 million lawsuit Tuesday against the pilot's family, a mechanic on the World War II-era aircraft and the Nevada organization that hosted the event.