Reno Air Race Disaster Recounted From Cockpits Two-time champion Steve Hinton Jr. thought the National Championship Air Races would never run again. The 24-year-old pilot and son of a former six-time champ of the same name was convinced it was all over a year ago when tragedy struck like never before in the 48 years of performance racing at Reno-Stead Airport. Hinton was pursuing a dream - a third straight title - and had opened up such a comfortable lead during the preliminary heat last Sept. 16 that he'd begun to ease the throttle on his P-51D Mustang with a half lap to go. That's when he got the radio call: Black flag. All racers off the course. Hinton knew something "tragic had to have happened." But there are temperature gauges, pressure pumps and gears that take priority when putting the brakes on a modified World War II fighter going 500 mph - sometimes wingtip to wingtip 100 feet off the ground. "It's not like pulling a car over to the side of the road," Hinton said. Initially, you're not thinking, 'Oh my God, what happened?' You have to manage everything, including your emotions. As they climbed to safer altitudes circling the 8.5-mile course through the Valley of Speed on the high-desert side of the Sierra Nevada, Hinton kept scanning the airfield but saw no flashing lights, no sign of wreckage. Then, another garbled radio call: a warbird "went into the grandstand. It's not good. "I never even thought to look in the grandstand," Hinton said, shaking his head. Still circling, Hinton began to take inventory to see who was gone. Stewart Dawson knew who it was - a 73-year-old former Hollywood stunt pilot from Florida named Jimmy Leeward and his P-51 Mustang dubbed the "Galloping Ghost." "He was right in my windshield when it happened," said Dawson, 58, a retired Southwest Airlines pilot from Celina, Texas, who flies the Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat "Rare Bear." I knew it wasn't good. His plane pitched upward, and that's not normal," he said. I looked out my rear window and saw the plane hit the pavement and disintegrate. Stunned, Dawson asked himself, "Did I just see what I saw?" "I never saw a plane disintegrate before," he said. It's just disbelief. It was horrible. Within hours, much of the world saw photographs and video of just how horrible - the aircraft hurtling nose down and exploding like a bomb in the box seats, killing 10 spectators and seriously injuring more than 70. Will Whiteside was trying to catch Hinton, flying ahead of Leeward in second place, when disaster struck. "I had no idea he was in trouble," said Whiteside, 41, pilot of the YACK 3U "Steadfast" from Windsor, Calif. I didn't learn what happened until I landed. It puts you in a bit of shock when you see loved ones walking back from the crash site. "Couldn't be much worse," Dawson added. This is a family and everybody in the Unlimited class was a friend of Jimmy's. The pilots and crews will tell you the Reno Air Races are themselves a family unit. "I don't just know everybody, I adore them," said Marilyn Dash, a veteran biplane pilot from the San Francisco Bay Area who saw Leeward crash. "I know their families, their kids, their grandkids," Dash said. It's a big family event. It's so close-knit. I never thought we could become closer, but we did.