posted Aug 22nd, 2007 - The Carolina Skydiving League completed its 2007 season last weekend, and its two winners, Carolina Ice (AAA) and Carolina Fire (AA) are well prepared for their trip to the USPA Nationals 2007 in September.

It will be the 5th time for a Carolina Ice line-up to compete at the USPA Nationals, and it will be a new attempt to win a set of USPA gold medals.

The history of team goes back to its first competition season in the Carolina Skydiving League 2003.

The NSL News coverage of the USPA Nationals 2007 is brought to you with the help of:

Pete Langehans, Bruce Travis, Kyle Rice and John Patten represented the team in 2003 and finished in 8th position of the AA Class competition with a 10.0 meet average.

The same line-up competed in the same competition class in 2004 and was safe in 2nd place when the infamous video issue caused the disqualification of the team. The NSL News story on 6 December 2004 provided the details. Carolina Ice later won the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2004 in November.

Carolina Ice had a new line-up in 2005. Pete Langehans, Bruce Travis, John Patten, John Freeman and Joey Lane competed one more time in the AA/Intermediate Class at the USPA Nationals 2005 and won the silver medals with a 12.7 average.

The line-up changed again before Carolina Ice moved up into the AAA Class for the 2006 season. Coach Jan Lane, former Angry Beez member, joined the team and guided Carolina Ice (Jan Lane - Tail, John Patten - Center Inside, Joey Freeman - Center Outside, Rhonda Wilcox - Point, Chad Wilcox on camera) through the first season in the AAA Class, which concluded with the 8th place and an 11.4 average at the USPA Nationals 2005.

The same line-up has competed for Carolina Ice throughout the 2007 season and has attended all five CASL 2007 meets this year. The consistent progression (10.5 - 11.8 - 10.8 - 13.8 - 13.7) has finally moved the team up into the position of a AAA/Advanced Class top contender at the USPA Nationals 2007.

Carolina Ice finished last weekend's CASL August meet with a 13.7 average after nine rounds. CASL Co-Director Dan Winkelstein provided the meet report of the event at Skydive Carolina.

CASL August Meet

By Dan Winkelstein

The fifth and final Carolina Skydiving League meet was held at Skydive Carolina in Chester on Saturday August 18. At this meet we had one AAA/Open Class team, three AA/Intermediate Class teams and two Rookie Class teams.

The first load was off the ground at 8:50 am in the morning. Skydive Carolina had a large number of tandem students, so each Super Otter load had two teams. Everything was going great till about 12:30 pm, we had almost completed the third round when the Super Otter had a metal warning indication. After a down-time of little more than an hour, we sent off one more load, which completed round three, and the metal warning indication came back on. Skydive Carolina informed us that we had at least a 2-hour down-time, at which point the concensus was to offically call the meet after three rounds.

Carolina Ice wanted to complete the remaining rounds and have these rounds judged. Pete Langehans was the meet judge, and he completed the judging for Carolina Ice on Sunday. A big thanks to Pete for helping to judge the meet.

The Carolina Skydiving League wishes the best of luck to Carolina Ice and Carolina Fire when they will compete at the USPA Nationals 2007. Thanks to everyone for an excellent season. Get ready for next year, it will be bigger and better.