Surprisingly, given the amount of sport kite flyers based around Portland OR and Vancouver WA, there hasn’t been a competition in many years in that immediate area. While Seaside, Lincoln City and Long Beach are all relatively short drives, the first weekend of May marks the return of sport kite competition to Portland itself. The Northwest Stunt Kite Championships has changed its name to the Northwest Sport Kite Championships and officially moved both its date and location, now being held on May 5th and 6th in Portland at Delta Park, just off of Highway 5 and beside the race track.

The event itself will be specifically focused on sport kites and will feature a full range of competition events, from Novice dual line to Masters events in both dual and quad line. There’s also pairs and team competitions as well. While this will be the first outdoor event of 2007, we’re midway through the season with respect to the NWSKL so expect to see the best of the Northwest flyers in attendance to gain as many points as they can.

Also being held on the Saturday evening is an Indoor competition which will be held at the Washington School for the Deaf gym, which is conveniently located just across the street from The Kite Shoppe in Vancouver, Washington, so if you don’t have an indoor kite handy, you can just pop in and pick one up. Theresa Norelius of The Kite Shoppe is also the main sponsor and contact person for this festival so if you need any information, just give her a call, she’d be pleased to fill you in. Also, Kitelife itself is a sponsor of this event, so you can expect a picture laden review on the whole affair in the next issue of this magazine.

There will be some featured performances and demos by a variety of people, including recently relocated Lam Hoac from Canada, performing both indoors and outdoors on quad and dual line kites. Carl Bragiel is also bringing his renowned “One Man Kite Team” to Delta Park, flying three Shivas at once! Also featured will be the Northwest’s premier quad kite team, iQuad. Featuring an assortment of flyers (including Portland’s own John Barresi and Vancouver Washington’s own Todd Rudolph) from both Canada and the United States, you can expect them to be at the full strength of 8 flyers for this event, they have been itching to get back out into the sunshine. Theresa is also hoping to have some fighter kite demos taking place in a one of the fields and with a little luck, We’ll coax Mark Reed from Prism Kites down as well! So many things you simply won’t want to miss, so head out early and stay for both days.

Portland weather at this time of the year is typically beautiful. The summer’s heat hasn’t quite set in, yet the coolness of winter is behind us, so, we’re hoping for a really pleasant weekend. Also, there’s a good number of restaurants close by, should you get hungrier than the concession stands can accommodate. Excellent accommodations have been found close by, you just need to call The Days Inn at 503-289-1800 and mention The Kite Show or talk to Mark Greene (General Manager) to receive a special discount on your stay. Rates will be :

1 queen bed is $55.20 plus tax
2 queen beds is $63.20 plus tax

And the address for the Days Inn is :

Days Inn Portland North
9930 North Whitaker Rd.
Portland, OR 97217
(I-5 Exit 306B & Whitaker Rd.)

While this may be the “1st Annual” for this event, we suspect it will quickly become a regular on the NWSKL circuit so be sure to not miss out on the inaugural event so that a few years down the road, you can simply smile and say “I’ve been to all of the events held in this spectacular park.

   Hope to see you there!

     David Hathaway