This year's first sanctioned competition was held at the Paratoys Salton Sea Fly-In on January 30th.

Events included the Cloverleaf and Spot Landing tasks, along with some other fun competitions not contributing to the National Rankings - Kiting War and Race Around the Lake (changed to a race to the rocks and back, around 20 miles).

The field included more pilots than have ever competed before, and there was even a British Team member, Dean Eldridge at the event.

I won the Cloverleaf/Spot Landing event with a Miniplane Paramotor and the Ozone Viper 20m glider. My cloverleaf time was only 49.9 seconds, just .2 seconds ahead of Dean! Paul Lundquist took third place in the first PPG competition he has ever entered!

The other events were not USPPA sanctioned, but were still fun and competitive. The Kiting Wars were held in very light wind, so a light wing was a clear advantage here. I won this event using the Ozone Ultralite Mountain wing, weighing less than 5 lbs!

The race to the rocks and back was a 20 mile, full bore, trimmers out, pedal to the metal race to see who could do it the fastest. It was originally set to be a race around the lake, but conditions precluded it from happening. There were four catagories, and each catagory was won by a different pilot. I competed in the Trike/Quad Reflex Wing catagory on my TrikeBuggy Thumper 4-Stroke PPG Trike and the 24m Ozone Viper, passing Mike Robinson on course as he struggled with a riser issue.

Phil Russman added a video of the Cloverleaf task I did, plus a bit of the Kiting War. Click HERE for more info from Jeff Goin at FootFlyer and HERE for more about the Cloverleaf layout at the event.

     -Chad Bastian