Fans of head-to-head airplane races at screaming speeds are traveling to unfamiliar skies as a premiere national competition debuts in New Mexico for the first time in its 60-year history. The five-day National Championship Air Races runs through Sunday at a commercial airfield and former Air Force base outside Roswell. It's a remote oil production region that's also famous for supposed sightings of unidentified flying objects — called unidentified anomalous phenomena by the government — and speculation about extraterrestrials. Most of the competitions take place within 250 feet (76 meters) of the ground — but not below 50 feet (15 meters) — as pilots defy gravity to circle a course marked by vintage pylons topped with brightly adorned barrels. Competitors will be piloting self-constructed

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