LAND SAILING: Sport kiting sets sail

Buggies can reach speeds up to 50 mph

While boaters line the shores of Lake Mead, Las Vegas kite sportsman Corey Jensen heads to Primm and a stretch of lake he often has to himself, the Ivanpah Dry Lake Bed.

"If I say radio control, even if you've never done it, you know what I'm talking about. But when I say kite, the image that pops up is that little paper, two stick thing. If I had a nickel for every time someone said, 'well, kites were sure fun when I was a kid,' I'd have a load of nickels," Jensen said.

Sport kite fanatics use kites that mimic the design of an airplane wing, providing maximum lift with minimal air resistance. The kites generate power to propel compact three-wheeled buggies. Kite buggies can be dismantled and packed into a suitcase for travel.

"Try doing that with your sailboat," Jensen said.

In the hands of an expert flier, a four-line sport kite can move a rider at speeds of 30 to 50 mph. Jensen's second craft of choice is the land sailer. The design resembles a sailboat, but the three wheels on the bottom enable the wind-powered vehicle to zoom through the desert at speeds of 50 to 100 mph.

Even at those speeds, Jensen said the desert demands appreciation.

"When I first got here I heard some politician talking about what a vast desolate wasteland the desert was. If you come out here and spend a weekend you'll discover the desert is an incredible place. There's a lot going on, but you have to get out of your car and wander away from the road in order to realize it.

"A lot of times it feels like preaching to people who aren't listening and don't care," he said. "They say lets just throw radioactive waste in it build on it, dam it up, cut it down. The dry lakes often times get that attitude out of people that anything is permitted. You can come out here and get wild, drive around in your four-wheel drive, spin big donuts, tear it up, leave big ruts in the lake that last 10 years. There's no respect. But you bring people out here and you teach them about kite flying, they think they're learning about kites, but what they learn is respect and humility."

Rarely is Jensen completely alone in the desert. Lately he's joined by fellow buggier John Ribitch and Kites in Central New York Skies member Rich Belcastro.

Belcastro was in Nevada on an Air Force contract when Ribitch and Jensen sold him a kite buggy from WindPower Sports, the kite shop Jensen manages. Jensen saw nothing strange about spending weekends training a customer to buggy.

"It's not just about money or sales. I'm an advocate for the sport," he explained.

"We call him the Corey Lama," Ribitch said.

Kiting has been an obsession for Jensen since he was 12, flying kites on the Oregon Coast.

"My dad was a forester and we'd use rolls of surveyor ribbon, real thin plastic ribbon with hardly any mass at all. I'd put a kite up and every 50 feet, I'd do a little lark's head in the line and stick one end of the ribbon in and lift up this big stream of ribbon off the line. As the kite goes up I'd have this whole column of ribbons streaming. It's visually a lot more stimulating than just watching your kite get smaller.

"I'd assumed I was just looking at waves of ribbon," he said. "But one day, I didn't see waves of ribbon, I saw waves of wind. And from that day, wind has been visible to me. I've been able to see it. Wind is invisible to most folks, unless it's strong. Which is why real windy days bring out all the people with cheap, plastic kites. Usually they just don't notice it."

In 1977, Jensen got into modern kiting while flying Denver Bronco's kites off a hotel roof over the team's stadium during games. Since then he's been blown away at the variety of kite challenges.

"When people first started designing dual line and cloth line sport kites, a lot of the folks doing that were friends of mine. I was there at the genesis of a lot of this stuff.

"They were not mainstream," he said. "They were kite fliers for God's sakes. That kind of appealed to me. I've never liked going with the crowd. I don't care where they're headed, it's just that if a lot of people are going that direction I'm going to go another way."

In 1985 Jensen and a partner opened a kite store on Cannery Row in California. They ran the shop for 12 years.

"When we sold it in '96 I really lost a lot of my identity," Jensen said. "We knew we were doing a good thing. We never made a lot of money, but there are riches in this world you don't take to the bank."

Jensen's convinced anyone would like wind power if they gave it a try.

"It's just enough off the main path that it's intriguing. It encompasses physics, nature, ecology and artistry," Jensen said. "Then there's the physicality of it. There's so many ingredients that go into kite flying. I'm not a great kite builder. I'm not a great kite flier. I'm not the best buggier. I'm not the best sport kite flier. I'm not a competitor. I don't have the biggest kite collection. I don't sell the most expensive kites and I surely don't buy them. I'm not any one thing in kiting, but I have found so many things in kiting that it's kept me fascinated for more than 25 years."

Most weekends Jensen and Ribitch can be found out on the dry lake bed zipping along in buggies. Two buggies can be secured together to create a tandem buggy built for two.

Ribitch brings his two daughters and he pulls one while Jensen pulls the other. Whether the girls like their time behind the buggy or not, for the grown-ups, it's just plain fun.

"You get to play at what you love to play at. It stimulates the imagination, allows creative outlets and it's much cheaper than psychiatry. And it helps you achieve a sense of balance, I think," Jensen said.

For more information, call WindPower Sports at 220-4340 or check out their Web site at www.windpowersports.com. The store is at 3111 S. Valley View Suite A-116. The store is closed Wednesday and Sunday and open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.


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