Saturday

It's always nice to finish a competition which has been plagued by bad weather on a good note. That's just what happened in Hakuba Japan. Our final race day, Saturday, didn't look very promising in the morning, but ended up being beautiful and we had a very successful race and really fun flying. The pwc Japan ended up being fully valid, so there were many happy pilots who managed to secure a ticket to the Superfinal in Turkey in the fall.

I was not one of them, although I certainly had my opportunities! The last day was no exception. Again, because the weather was uncertain, an individual start time race was called, meaning that every pilot was racing against the clock individually, and not directly against each other. Nobody would know for sure what their place was until gps units were downloaded at the end of the day.

It was still cloudy when we launched, and conditions were light. It looked to me like the conditions were going to be getting much stronger in the next hour, so I decided to just stay and fly around the launch area, after watching every pilot go on glide towards the first turn point. A pilots individual race started as soon as they entered the 4 kilometer start cylinder. If you didn't like how things were going when you entered the cylinder, you could fly out of it and then re-enter when it looked good for you. The scoring system would only look at the last time you entered the start cylinder.

My patience paid off after about a half hour and some nice puffy clouds formed up behind launch. I thermaled up to cloud base in a strong climb - I was the only pilot in the area - every other pilot had left out on course. I then flew back just out of the start cylinder so I would have a fresh time start, and went on glide. I just killed the first part of the race compared to the rest of the field who had left much lower and struggled initially. This gave me a huge time advantage. I wouldn't get leading points which are awarded to pilots who push out ahead but I was hoping for a fast enough time that leading points wouldn't matter. I made the first large valley crossing really high, and was on top of the next ridge in perfect position for the next part of the race. Here is where I made the mistake that cost me my superfinal ticket. I was so focused on the sky, the clouds, the terrain, and the rest of it, that I managed to fly right past the first turn point. When I caught my mistake, I had to make a 90 deg turn to the left and fly a full 2 kilometers out into the valley, and then the 2 kilometers back, getting simply drilled both way and losing tons of altitude. It would have been a simple matter of adjusting my initial line straight to the turn point if I had been paying attention!! This mistake cost me a solid 5 minutes. Even with this major brain cramp, I still had the 2nd fastest time of the day, but ended up 8th for the day after leading points were factored in..... Oh well at least I caught my mistake when I was still in position to correct it!!

The awards and closing party were fun and the organizers overall did an excellent job of keeping us entertained throughout the bad weather time. We finished with 2 really fun race days. I think on the 2nd task when I flew by the turn point, I was so taken with the beauty of the mountains and the surrounding areas that I can see how I got distracted.

Sunday morning we got on a nice bus from Hakuba into Nagano, and then on the Bullet train to Tokyo. It was amazing to go streaking through the countryside, under large mountain ranges in just minutes through endless tunnels, and wind up in downtown Tokyo in just a little over an hour. Another train ride to Narita airport and we were ready for our flight back to Seattle. United treated us great and we enjoyed a nice ride in business class on the Boeing 777.

We stopped in Medord on the way home to fly and visit with Wil and Teal. Had a few more great flights and finally feeling dialed in on my R10.2. Incredible glider which commands an incredible amount of respect and energy to be properly managed.... but worth every bit of it. I'd say for the first time that I feel that I'm on on even keel in terms of performance with other top US pilots. It will be interesting to see if I can perform at the US Nationals and the PWC Chelan.

Been spending tons of time helping the Chelan PWC organizers get ready to host the first paragliding world cup event in the US since the early 90s. Looks like things are coming together and it should be a really fun event.

Have decided to withdraw from the Greece pwc to stay closer to home and may attend the RatRace which starts next weekend in Oregon. I'm planning to watch the weather and if it looks good head down there to Medford. I have lots of friends who will be competing and could really use a good warm up comp to get me ready for the Nationals which start July 10th.