Record crowds attend 35th annual Reno Air Races

Pilot Bruce Lockwood, of Mojave, Calif., clocked a speed of 441 mph on Sunday in the highly modified P-51 fighter to edge out Dennis Sander's Sea Fury, Dreadnought. Sander's speed on Sunday was 439 mph.

"It's an honor, a dream come true, to race this airplane," Lockwood said of the plane owned by Terry Bland of Salt Lake City.

"It was a great race. I'm sure the fans liked it," Lockwood added.

Event officials said a record crowd of 170,000 people attended the four-day event at Stead Airport.

Other winners in the gold categories were Jon Sharp, of Lancaster, Calif., Formula One; Jack Frost, of Marianna, Ark., T-6; Jim Smith Jr., Chester, Calif., Biplane; Dave Morss, Redwood City, Calif., Sport; Rick Raesz, Fort Worth, Texas, T-28.

The 35th annual Reno Air Races was not without casualty.

Richard Roberts, 63, Maybee, Mich., died Thursday when his single-engine Formula One plane crashed into the yard of a house about a mile northeast of Stead Airport.

It was the 13th fatality in the 35-year history of the air races and the first since 1994, when two pilots died in crashes.

Planes in some classes reach speeds in excess of 440 mph.

Roberts worked as a safety investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The crash happened about 9:45 a.m. Thursday, after he finished third in his group's race and was flying back to the Stead airport.

The 9-mile race course avoids nearby homes, but planes take off and land over the residential areas.

The airport tower received no radio calls indicating he was in any trouble before he crashed through a fence and into a back yard near the airport.

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