Witwell

Its blowing straight in at Witwell today. Here is Kathy Lee launching
her little Atos VS.

Lookout Mountain

I'm up at Lookout Mountain this weekend. They have a beautiful new
ramp. Unfortunately, its blowing down the mountain today :-(( We're
going to try Hensons or Whitwell...maybe better luck at one of those.

Finally closed today....

....and here is my amazing and huge backyard as seen from my patio :-)

One for my sweetie...

Hang Gliding is Everywhere in Brasil!!

I was browsing through Simone's magazines and found this great cover shot.

My Baby

Brooke was complaining the other day that there aren't enough pictures of me on the blog. I couldn't disagree with her more and since she's much prettier anyway, here's a shot of her. How did I end up with such a perfect child??

Coming back home was like going to jail...

....the sheets and the blankets and babies and all.


We flew back down from Brasilia this afternoon for one last night in Rio. Guga and Simone are so great. We stuffed ourselves at our favorite buffet in Barra and listened to Guga and Jonny sing Serial Killer all the way home.


One too many the night before?






The sky was perfect over Brasilia as we flew away :-(

Sunday in Brasilia

We have one rest day in Brasilia before we fly back to Rio tomorrow afternoon. It was nice being here with old friends and making some new ones too.

Andre is the Big Winner

It was quite close in the end. Although Nene won the last day (and 3 out of 5 tasks), Andre still beat him out overall. 4th through 9th places were all up for grabs - in the end all within 100 points of each other. The top ten were:

1 Andrea (Litespeed)
2 Nene (T2)
3 Leo (T2)
4 Jonny (Litespeed)
5 Michel (T2)
6 Monex (Combat)
7 Chris (Litespeed)
8 Dustin (T2)
9 Guga (Litespeed)
10 Glouco (Combat)

Brasilian Independence Day

I had great company on retrieve today. Gugu's beautiful and very very sweet wife Simone is here for the final days of the competition. She's getting a lot of footage for Gugu who puts together really nice videos - he is working on one from the worlds now.


























Another busy day at the Esplanade. Today is Brasilian independence day and the city is hopping! There was a parade this morning, which we of course missed because we were out at launch. But, from the looks of the goal field today, everyone stuck around after the parade to watch the gliders land. Nene came in first, but that's about all I know on the order. I'm doing a terrible job with the lineup each day because I'm not able to arrive before they do. So, better to get results at the official website at http://www.superrace2007.blogspot.com/ At this point, I think it is a very close race for first between Nene and Andre.


Here's Jonny doing a one handed launch today.

Great Task....

We're back to the Esplanade goal field again. Wow, we really need to find a way to have goals like this in the US....hot pizza, beer and soft drink carts everywhere, tons of spectators and hot girls everywhere you look (not my thing really, but the guys seem to like it ;-)

Winners today were Andre, Leo, Nene then Jonny. Although they are doing race starts here, you can still never tell who will win the day based on the order of goal crossing because they are scoring with a leading bonus. So today, for instance, Nene crossed the line first, but Andre won the day for being out in front a bit more.

Tomorrow starts a long holiday weekend here with a parade in the morning and I'm sure plenty of partying tomorrow night. Should be fun!

Second Task

Exciting day today. The wind backed off just enough for a task, but the launches were still pretty wild! 120something kilometer task, but no landing at the Esplanade today. There is a parade or something going on it town, so they used the alternate goal field. About an hour into the task Chris came on the radio to report that the guy under him was tumbling. Apparently he went over at least 4 times, possibly as many as 6. He eventually got the chute out, after the glider was pretty much toast. Thankfully, he was totally unhurt...just minus one Combat.

The finish went something like this:

Maskara
Monex
Jonny
Andre

....that's about all I know. Dustin, Chris and Guga came in in the late teens and Konrado landed a bit short. There were quite a few at goal.

Another Rest Day

Fun day on launch today. On the drive there everyone whined that we were just wasting time and gas. The wind in the city was blowing even stronger than yesterday and we were guessing it would be 70 kph on launch. Surprisingly, when we arrived, the wind was much lighter than expected. The clouds looked beautiful and they called a task. Well, it wasn't long before the wind started to pick up. An hour and half after arriving, it was blowing like stink again...at least as bad as yesterday. Gliders were being blown over and around on launch and everyone was running around grabbing their wings. The paramedics hadn't arrived, so competitors weren't allowed to launch yet, but a free flyer decided to take off. Way back in my Marina Beach days, we used to do what we called a "boing" launch. With a full wire crew synchronized, they would all release together and you would go straight up into the air above the ramp...very little forward, mostly just straight up. That's exactly what this free flyer did. Looked pretty cool actually, he went way up, way fast. I guess I just wouldn't try that anywhere but at a smooth coastal site.

Found this tiny little owl yesterday...he was no bigger than my fist! I've never seen one that small.

Rest Day

Today Guga clocked the wind at launch at about 60kph. Needless to say, the day was cancelled....although I was suprised that quite a few pilots set up, thinking maybe there would be a task.

After a giant party at the Texaco station, we headed down to the waterfalls for a little swim. Nice hike. Cold cold water. Fun time.

Team USA

Task 1

107km zigzag task back to the Esplenade. Nene won the day, beating Dustin by about 5 seconds or so. Dusty was happy. Not too shabby a performance for having just arrived this morning after an all night drive from Atibia and no sleep since Thursday night in Phoenix. The Brasilian pilots have been super friendly. I know several from the Florida and Texas meets, but I'm meeting tons of great new people, despite the fact that I know basically just one phrase in Portugese ;-)



The field consists mostly of Brasilians but for two Americans (Dusty and Chop Chop) and two Australians (Jonny and Phil).

Today's finishing lineup was something like this:

Nene
Dustin
Maskara
Andre Wolf

....unsure after that except to say that my boys (Jonny, Chris, Konrado and Guga) were in fairly late. Chris was the first among them and is probably in the top ten for the day!

Plano Pilote

It's starting to look at lot more like a competition around here. Unlike yesterday when there were maybe half a dozen pilots on launch, today it was packed. The comp starts tomorrow but most everyone has arrived for the weekend. I haven't seen Dustin yet...word is that he arrives in Atibia tonight and will drive all night to arrive in Brasilia for the start of the comp.








Before coming here I was told by many people how amazing the city goal field is. But, you can't really appreciate it until you see it for yourself. I don't know that there is any other place like it where gliders land right smack in the middle of a large city, in a grassy divide with five lanes of busy traffic on each side. It is most impressive. Actually the whole city is impressive.

The goal field is that first grassy area past the overpass and adjacent to the dome-like building.