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December 1, 2009

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Two pilots walk away from plane wrecks

Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1999 | 11:03 a.m.

Formula One veteran Jim Miller of San Antonio, Texas, crashed his small plane on landing. Newcomer Jim Nezgoda of Genoa, flying in the Unlimited class of large powerful planes, crashed on takeoff.

Miller's No. 14, Pushy Cat, veered off the runway into sagebrush. Asked if he were hurt, Miller replied: "Not a scratch."

"The nose wheel collapsed at about 80 mph. I couldn't hold it up," he said. "A pin had sheared."

The plane, which has a rear propeller, fared badly. "Now is a good time to re-build it for next year," Miller said.

Nezgoda also walked away from the crash, but had a cut nose after his plane, a Yak 3M, crashed into the sagebrush at the race course north of Reno.

Nezgoda's No. 17 Yak, The Ranch, was torn apart. As it started a takeoff run, it suddenly turned into hilly brush and rolled over in a cloud of dust.

"I don't know what it was," he said.

Last September, Richard Roberts, 63, Maybee, Mich., died when his single-engine Formula One plane crashed into the yard of a house about a mile northeast of Stead Airport. He was the 13th fatality in the history of the air races and the first since 1994, when two pilots died in crashes.

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