Formula 1 upset highlights first day of races

Friday, Sept. 17, 1999 | 9:40 a.m.

Veteran racer Ray Cote of El Cajon, Calif., who has not taken home a Gold championship in nine years, fought off determined champion Jon Sharp of Lancaster, Calif., to win the eight-lap heat on Thursday.

Sharp has won eight Reno Gold titles in a row and Cote has won 12.

Aside from a couple of emergency landings during the first day of competition, the only accident involved a Formula One. Birch Entriken of Truckee, Calif., swerved to avoid another plane on the runway while landing and ended in the sagebrush.

The plane's competitive future is over for this year, but the pilot was not hurt.

The races at the Reno Stead airport north of Reno run through Sunday.

In the Formula One heat, another Californian, Dave Hoover of Foster City, took second behind Cote because Sharp had been dropped to third for cutting inside a pylon. Cote's winning speed was nearly 245 mph.

"We're working on it and improving all the time," Cote said of his red, yellow and white midget.

Sharp made no excuses.

"We were playing around with some things," he said of Nemesis, which he plans to retire this year and donate to the Smithsonian museum. He is building a new racer.

Another race frustrated Bob Hannah's attempt to climb back into the Unlimited Gold field after a Monday mechanical breakdown. Competing in a Bronze, or third level, heat after barely qualifying with a spare engine purchased from the Dago Red crew, Hannah managed to win at 401 mph.

That ordinarily would have moved him up to the Silver, but he was penalized to last place for flying over the deadline established to keep planes a safe distance from the pit and crowd. Former astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson of Murfreesboro, Tenn., was the winner at 390 mph.