Connie was part of the crew for her husband's airplane racing team, Aerophile, and they were at Stead Field in Reno in September for the National Championship Air Races and Air Show when she saw Debs' plane lift off and then disappear. "I couldn't see what was happening," she says.

Ray Debs, a computer engineer at Micron Technology, has been riding in small airplanes since he was a baby, and flying them since he was a teenager. He'd raced model airplanes plenty of times, but this was his first time ever racing an airplane when he was in it.

Debs, who moved to Saratoga as a boy and now lives in Campbell, is a swarthy, slim man of 37. His words are measured, thoughtful, gentle. He seems almost shy, not the macho kind of guy one would expect to fly among astronauts and ace military pilots. What's more, Debs' father died in a small-plane accident at the age of 38.

But flying, to Debs, is like breathing, and it's something that Connie—who would prefer that he had a hobby like stamp collecting—struggles to accept.

But Connie's feelings are mixed. She felt a surge of pride and fear as she watched her husband wheel his plane out on the Stead Field runway.

The same pride surged through Curtis Weinman that day. He'd been attending the Reno races on and off for 15 years, but this year was the first time he was on the inside of the fence. Weinman, a Los Gatos High School grad of 1981 and an electrician, is the teammate and crew chief of the Aerophile racing team that he and Debs formed in October of 2000. The plane Debs flew also belongs to Weinman. "It's pretty exciting when the crowd cheers for your plane," Weinman says.

To be sure, qualifying for the Reno races is no easy accomplishment. Participants are truly the "big boys." Debs says that almost half the competitors are commercial airline pilots. Others are astronauts and military flying aces who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Surrounded by their heroes and cheered on by the 250,000 people in the stands was pretty exhilarating for Debs and Weinman.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Ray Debs (left) and Curtis Weinman roll the frame of their Formula One airplane into the garage.

Their synergy and growing skill led to their next dream—building a homemade racing airplane, the kind one gets in and flies. They would race their custom plane at the Reno races. Debs would be the pilot. They named themselves the Aerophile team and bought an airplane kit.

Building setbacks and the need for custom parts meant they couldn't finish the plane in time, though it already had a name—Carbon Slipper.

So Debs and Weinman bought a used Cassutt Formula One plane, a bright green one. They modified the engine some and named it Plane Mantis. Someone even sponsored them by offering them a hanger at the Hollister airport, where Debs pilots at Bay Area Glider Rides. This made testing their new plane easier, and Debs could practice what he'd learned from taking lessons two years in a row at the Pylon Racing Seminar.

A racing plane is light, small and easily affected by wind currents. "You have to know how to use the engine and the airflow to make the plane go faster," Debs says. "You listen to the plane's engine, trying to keep it running at its most powerful."

You have to know a lot more, too.

To qualify for the races, pilots must pass a rigorous test. They must recreate an aborted takeoff without veering more than 10 feet. They must fly a smooth but difficult racing takeoff. They must fly in close formation while a leader makes all kinds of changes. They must demonstrate rollovers both to the right and to the left and then do a half roll upside down and back. They must do a power-off (engine off) landing, something Debs actually had to do for real when his engine died.

During the race, pilots must stay to the left and pass on the outside. Debs says, "We also deal with the turbulence created by the plane in front of us." The propeller on the front plane pulls in air, which causes a small tornado for the plane behind. That can cause the rear plane to roll upside down. Debs says the movie Top Gun showed a pilot flying through the "wash" of another plane and being flipped upside down.

And according to Debs, landing a small plane is harder than landing a commercial airliner. "If you don't touch down smoothly," he says, "the plane will bounce and you could hit your propeller on the runway and break it." He says that means tearing down the whole engine to make sure nothing was damaged. And it costs $800 to $1,000 to replace a propeller.

But Debs is careful. "He's not a daredevil," Connie says, which is comforting to her.

This was Debs' rookie year as a race pilot. "I just wanted to fly, learn the ropes, be safe and survive," he says. In fact, he qualified with the slowest plane in the Formula One class—which is itself the slowest class.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Ray Debs (inside the cockpit) and Curtis Weinman are building an airplane that Debs wil fly in the National Championship Air Races at Reno, Nev., next year.

And there's something genetic about Debs' flying.

His father grew up in Lancaster, near Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, where space shuttles land. As a boy, Debs Sr. spent many hours at the glider port. Pilots there took him under their wing (so to speak) and taught him to fly.

When Debs Jr. came along, his first ride in a small plane was at the tender age of 6 months. Airplanes were a big part of the father and son relationship.

As a Realtor, Debs Sr.'s time was flexible, so he spent a lot of time with his family. They flew many places, including the Grand Canyon.

Debs recalls trips alone with his father. "We'd fly someplace and camp overnight." The twosome rebuilt a Piper Cub in their garage. "I got to fly it," Debs says. Some 20 years later Debs drove by the family's old house in Lancaster. "Yellow paint from the Piper Cub we built was still on the garage door," he says.

Today, a number of large model planes are parked at various spots inside Debs' Campbell home. Among them is a model yellow Piper Cub, just like the plane he and his father built.

When Debs was 10, his father was killed flying a small aircraft. Debs says the emotional blow was softened when his mother said his father had gone to heaven. "Then I knew I would see him again one day," Debs says. He says the family was relieved when they learned that the plane crashed because of mechanical failure, not from pilot error.

Flying, by then, was in Debs' blood, and he wanted to be like his father. "This sounds corny," Debs says, "but my father was my hero." He says too that both his grandfathers died of cancer from smoking, and this also made an impression on him. "My father died doing something he loved," Debs says.

Some of those flying genes came from Debs' mother, Gloria Debs-Kahn, a longtime Saratoga resident who also grew up near Edwards Air Force Base and learned to fly when she was 16. "I've been around it all my life," Kahn says. "My father was an airplane mechanic." Also, growing up near Edwards, she met astronauts and people who worked for NASA. "It was an exciting life," Kahn says.

Kahn worries some about her son flying, but she supports him. "I admire him for being able to build a plane and fly it," Kahn says. "It's a fun life." She says she took her son to fly glider planes when he was a teenager. "I think that's a good way to learn the basics," she says. At 19, Debs got his license. But his sister Tina has stayed away from flying. "Tina was pretty nervous at the Reno races," Kahn says.

Debs' partner, Curtis Weinman, 39, comes from a different background. No one in his family flies. "They are SCUBA divers and participate in sports," he says. But Weinman says he's wanted a pilot's license since he was 16. He began building and flying model airplanes as a teen. And along with whitewater kayaking and a number of other extreme sports, he took up hang gliding.

"I had one of the original gliders, where you actually hang," he says. At that time Weinman was married, and he says his wife reminded him of all the injuries and deaths hang gliders suffer. Then one day a heavy wind swooped up under Weinman's glider wing and crashed him into a hill. He gave up hang gliding.

Weinman, who started out at West Valley College to become an architect, loves to work with his hands. "I knew I wouldn't like the long hours of desk work," he says. So he became an electrician and works for Cupertino Electric. But his greatest joy is flying. "It took me three years and about five or six thousand dollars to get my license, but I wasn't in a hurry," Weinman says. He got his license in July of this year.

As the Reno races grew near, Debs and Weinman assembled their team—Debs' wife, Connie, Debs' mother, Gloria and her husband, Sam, Debs' sister, Tina, and friends John and Jacob Raquet. Everyone got shirts and jackets with Aerophile blazoned on them. Weinman finished rebuilding the huge truck that would haul the plane to the races.

The duo disassembled the plane, packed it in the truck and took off with their team for Reno.

In Reno the Aerophile team mingled with some of the best pilots in the world. "A nice group of people," Kahn says.

Before the races begin everyone is like family, friendly and close, according to Debs. But when the race is on, that all changes. "It's combat," he says. He says the military pilots say it's just like flying in war time.

According to Debs, the military encourages their pilots to race because of the skill they develop for combat.

Jimmy Doolittle—born in Alameda and famous for leading the first carrier-based bomber attack on mainland Japan in 1942—loved to race planes.

Gloria Kahn says one evening at the races, she listened to stories from a pilot who'd flown combat missions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

The ace pilots race in the fastest races. Debs only wanted to get experience this time. He didn't care about winning.

At 175 mph, he qualified as the slowest in his Formula One class. (He actually got a prize for being the slowest plane—a set of spark plugs and a case of oil.) The fastest in his class qualified at 258 mph.

Everyone in the Formula One class has essentially the same engine restrictions. Planes weigh a minimum of 500 pounds empty. Pilots must weigh a minimum of 160 pounds. Debs says his 15-pound parachute got his weight of 145 pounds up to the right level.

Eight planes take off at the same time—three in the front, two in the middle and three in the back. Pilots must fly 3.1 miles at 35 feet above ground, circling an oval marked off by pylons, and the pilot's head cannot dip below the pylons or he's disqualified.

Debs completed the first two races, but when he lifted off for the third race his engine sputtered. His plane was having trouble with the fuel delivery. "I had to decide—either I go up with a bad engine or I stop."

Connie was relieved when Tina came running up to say Debs had pulled away from the other planes and landed. But Connie was surprised when she heard the crowd of 250,000 cheering for him. "They cheered his judgment to be safe," she says. "It was amazing."

Contributed photograph Ray Debs lands his Formula One airplane, Plane Mantis, on Stead Field in Reno, Nev., where he raced in this year's National Championship Air Races.

Weinman hopes to qualify next year for the Formula One race, and he plans to fly the green plane, Plane Mantis.

Connie wrestles with the idea of learning to fly, too, but for different reasons. "If something happens to Ray while we are flying, I would be able to take over," she says.

"I try to make Connie comfortable with all this," Debs says a little wistfully. He's not sure how much she enjoys this lifestyle.

But seeing Debs and Weinman light up when they show off their planes and talk about the new one they are building, it's apparent that this lifestyle will last at least for a little while longer.