Freischaltung » ctory was 0.802 seconds.It was a very hard race, Gar

The last word Kari Castle would use to describe herself is fearless. She claims shes no daredevil.Ive always said Im a gutless coward, she says, laughing.In fact, the first time she took hang gliding lessons back in 1981, she was too terrified to leave the ground. Shed get strapped into the glider, get a running start at the top of a 200-foot hill and then crash, time after time. Shed abort the moment she felt the wing lift.It scared the crap out of me, she says. So I pulled the bar in to make it stop, and Id crash. I did that all day. I couldnt allow myself. I couldnt trust it. At the end of the day I was so sore and beat up and tired. Humiliated.Yet somehow she still wanted to soar like an eagle. She went back the next day, started with a crash, got up, charged down the hill again ... and lifted off. When I finally got in the air I was like, Oh, that was easy, she recalls. I couldnt believe how easy it was once I just let it do its thing. Then you couldnt stop me.Over the 35 years since, Castle has made her home in the clouds.At 55, shes one of the all-time greats in her sport. She continues to fly both hang gliders and paragliders while working as a teacher and coach in Bishop, California, and doing stunt-double work in movies and television. Shes won three womens world hang gliding championships (and been second twice). Shes had 20 national championships and was selected to the six-person (usually all-male) national team three times. She also won seven paragliding national championships.She has traveled the world, seen gorgeous sights and flown over the Alps and Andes. Plus, shes set five womens world records in hang gliding, three of which still stand: longest-distance flight (250.7 miles), longest straight flight to a declared goal (219.6 miles) and longest dogleg (one-turn) flight (181.5 miles).After thousands of hours in the air, suspended only by straps and wind, Castle feels completely comfortable in the sky yet still cant quite explain how she can step off a high, rocky ledge and trust shell fly. She trusts her equipment and takes every safety precaution. And she also surmises its just too fun and too beautiful for her not to.I cant even climb a ladder without being afraid, but I can be 10,000 feet above the ground and look down and feel like thats normal, and it feels good, she says. It is too good to be true. Its a dream just to float away from a mountain.When Castle moved to California in 1982 from her native Michigan, it was to go to community college. Hang gliding wasnt a priority, ranking behind school and becoming a lifeguard. She did lifeguarding and was an aerobics instructor before eventually graduating to a 9-to-5 job for a technology marketing research firm in the Bay Area. In the interim she found one of the states best hang gliding schools just minutes away from her home in Fremont.She couldnt afford it, so the school cut a deal with her: work for lessons. She did whatever was needed, including setting up a simulator in malls and selling lessons to others. So, she was flying, working at the school and having a great time. One time, a local hang gliding club needed a woman for a competition. They said, Kari, we need you to enter. We need a chick, she recalls. She won the womens division.She remembers she couldnt do a 360-turn that was required, but she nailed her takeoff and landing and stayed up for hours, longer than any other woman.Thats what I was good at.The victory set the competitive hook in her. In 1988 she moved to Bishop, one of the hot spots for the sport. Nestled in the Owens Valley between the Sierra Nevada and White mountains, the Bishop area has the right combination of wind and peaks to be a hang gliding magnet.That year she found her perfect home -- one where she can be perpetually outside and active, hang gliding, hiking, climbing, mountain biking and skiing (downhill and Nordic). She also won her first womens national hang gliding title.Her new home was the catalyst for her new career as a teacher, coach and guide as well. She saw so many people who had taken lessons but couldnt progress -- and still really didnt know what they were doing.They learn just enough where their instructor says, You can go out and fly, these are the restrictions, be careful, dont fly in these conditions, dont do this, and the idea is they go out and hopefully get taken under someone elses wings, who help them along in the next part of their journey, she says. But many didnt know where to go to get that mentor. She filled that niche.Now, too, she coaches top-echelon hang gliders, passing on what shes learned over 35 years. Castle is no longer driven to compete in hang gliding, though she says shes not officially retired. And, she continues to enter some paragliding competitions. But at this point, its not all the championships shes won or the records shes set that are most dear to her.Whats most important, she says, is the life shes been able to lead. Today, shes engaged to be married, still flying and giving back to the sport as an official (she helped organize the 2015 national championships) and able to split time between Bishop, Baja California and the Hood River in Oregon (where she kite boards).Also, now, shes giving back to others. Shes part of The Cloudbase Foundation, an organization of free-flight pilots that raises money and does projects in communities across the U.S., South America, Africa and Asia where competitions are held. Shes doing similar work with another hang gliding/paragliding group, Wings of Kilimanjaro, in Africa.Hang gliding is predominantly a mental and skill sport. Elite competitions last from four to 12 days. The pilot who takes his or her glider over a set course -- around designated turn points -- the fastest is the winner of each days route. Daily results are averaged for an overall champion.You have to be accurate, she says. These turn points, you have to be within a 400-meter radius.When she first started competing, pilots would wrap maps around their base bars (the bars held by the pilots to control the craft, along with weight shifts) and use them for navigation. To prove theyd flown over a turn point, they had to take pictures. Then race organizers would have to develop the film to check. Now the pilots use GPS, and race officials track their flights in detail.She says the evolution of the sport has been amazing. These days, too, hang gliders can soar over flat lands such as Arkansas or Texas. A place like Bishop isnt necessary. Pilots and their craft can be towed skyward, then catch the winds.But whether its 2016 or 1988, two things have remained constant: the thrills and dangers of the sport. Castle has had just enough of the dangers to always make her cautious. She takes no extra risks.Twice shes had to deploy her reserve parachute, once in the Owens Valley in 1988 from 15,500 feet and the other in the Alps just a few years ago. In both cases, her glider got caught in dangerous wind shifts and tumbled out of control.Both times, she thought she would die. The first time she had a hard landing, injured a foot, cracked her tailbone and vertebrae and lost a tooth. The second time, she had a soft landing with no injuries, but it helped her to decide to cut back her competition schedule.I was tumbling just like a leaf out of the tree, flipping, tumbling, she recalls. When she finally was able to deploy her chute, she felt lucky. After that it was like, I dont want to play anymore.But she cant imagine not flying for fun.Almost every flight, I look around and Im like, Holy moly, Im still doing this. Im still in one piece. I mean, I know way too many people that arent. But yeah, just the simple act of running off a mountain and flying -- how many people really do that? Not very many.As she describes her life, she gets emotional. The champion who laughs often and pokes fun at herself feels blessed. The fact Ive been able to live my dream, I feel like thats an accomplishment, she says. Without even realizing it. Because all along Ive been like, Oh, gosh, what am I going to be when I grow up? Ive got to do something.But its taken me a long time to accept that what Ive done is OK. I keep thinking I should be doing something with my life ... but so many people have led that serious working life and then I see them and they say, Damn, I wish I would have followed my passion or what I was meant to do.Which is what Castle is doing -- and finally appreciating.I remember my friend a few years ago, she said, Gosh, Kari, you live the life of a millionaire, but you have no money, she says, laughing. Fake Adidas Jerseys . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. Fake Jerseys For Sale .B. -- The Baie-Comeau Drakkar took over sole possession of first place atop the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League on Thursday with their sixth straight win. http://www.fakejersey.com/ . Zvonareva, who won the tournament in 2009 and 10, couldnt handle her opponents big groundstrokes in only her third event back after 17 months out with a shoulder injury. Zvonareva made her comeback in January in Shenzhen and played in the Australian Open but lost her first matches at both tournaments. Fake NHL Jerseys . - NASCAR announced a 33-race schedule for the 2014 Nationwide Series with virtually no changes from this years slate. Fake Jerseys Website . Miikka Kiprusoff had just announced his retirement after a decade-long run in Calgary and it would be up to Berra and Ramo to fill the void. DANVILLE, Va. -- Corvette Racing teammates Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia race to their first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of the season Sunday in the 3-hour, 40-minute race at Virginia International Raceway.Magnussen started from the pole position in the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and led the first 48 minutes before pitting to turn the car over to Garcia. It took just three laps for Garcia -- who resumed in seventh place following the pit stop -- to retake the lead.Garcia led all but three of the remaining laps and held off Dirk Mueller in the No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT on a one-lap dash to the finish following the only full-course caution period, which came out with six minutes remaining when points leader Oliver Gavin crashed the No. 4 Corvette. Garcias margin of victory was 0.802 seconds.It was a very hard race, Garcia said. My team got me a threee- to four-second gap, and then it was a classic green, white, checkered.dddddddddddd Not even green then white, it was like white and checkered. It was an amazing race and the Corvette was brilliant.Mueller and Joey Hand were second. They won the GTE Pro class in France in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June with Sebastien Bourdais.Earl Bamber and Frederic Makowiecki were third in the No. 912 Porsche. Bamber took the final spot on the podium from Toni Vilander after contact with Vilanders No. 62 Ferrari on the last lap.In the GT Daytona class, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow converted Snows first class pole position into a dominating victory in the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini. The victory was the first in IMSA competition for the Italian manufacturer. ' ' '