Hello racers - Wow, great race to watch and take part in! We had a great turnout & I was impressed with the number of new racers we had; hopefully we got a few of you hooked on Adventure Racing!
I want to give a big THANK YOU to all of you for keeping the SKMC a safe race. We had no serious injuries. A few scrapes and a few exhausted racers, but nothing serious. I also want to give a big thanks to all my great volunteers which make this race happen on race day. A big thanks to Kelcy and Scott B., Jennifer H., Tom and Brenda M., Rosemary M., Joe E., Keith B., Dave S., Tom S. Andy S., Nicole and Ryan, Adam B., and all others who pitched in to make this race happen.
I also want to give a big thanks to our sponsors!!! Doug Pastrich and his company 1st Basis Consulting was great to us and should be thanked for the fantastic prizes given to the top teams this year! Joe and Kathy Elliot were fun to have as our sponsor in numerous races and REI was great to throw in some additional prizes along with Rod McLennan of Fat Otter Adventure Racing for donating a few gifts. Thanks to all!!!!!!
Now, on to the writeup: At the start of the race we had a quick run on an aerial map over to Ottawa lake. We had a lot of fast runners who wanted to get a jump on the field. Before I knew it, we had 4-6 teams on the fast NAS-BOAT oval in a tight fight for first place on the water. In the end, Ya Mule Clunkers had the fastest NAS- BOAT time.....rumor has it they were using speed tape on the bow and some type of illegal fuel in their bodies(race officials are looking into it now) :). They were followed by numerous fast teams including Adventure North and others.
We had only 1 crash and burn that officials saw, a flip over by Childs Voice boat. Rumor had it that they some balance problems, loose rear end or something like that. However the scary thing is, they may have had one of the fastest times if they could have kept that boat up right. Milan and his son Tomas had a time of 56 min on the water and that tough team got completely wet and got back in the boat and continued on in true adventure racing spirit!
Onto the bike and a fast few miles to the mountain biking trails of Emma Carlin. It was good to see all teams stay safe on some of these tough trails.....it appears that Elkbones had the fastest split here. A blazing time of 32 minutes followed by fast times from Dazed and Confused and Ya Mule Clunkers. Rumor has it that Ya Mule Clunkers would have had a faster time if Mike wasn?t trying to tune up his bike during the ride......that should be done before the race big guy.
Then it was onto the dreaded Nav course across the road at Stute Springs. Actually, most of our talented Nav. teams had no problem with the map and seemed to enjoy the scenery. Our Rainbow Unicorns had the fastest split of 1 hour and 1 minute and rumor has it that Justin and Molly would have had a faster split if Justin wasn?t trying to move a barb wire fence in the middle of the race. They were followed by fast times from Adventure North, Ya Mule Clunkers, Elkbones, and MAAR. Lots of teams did well on this map and unknown by all, one of our sneaky volunteers installed a trail camera out there and we have some great trail pictures of some of you!
After the nav section, teams had a long, cold and windy bike ride to Gus's drive-in. While most teams seemed to enjoy Gus's, they could have used a little warmer weather for the bike ride....good thing adventure racers are tough! Fastest road bike time went to Rainbow Unicorns followed by Elkbones and Ya Mule Clunkers. Great job by all for surviving a tough road bike section in the SNOW!
Well, race was now getting interesting coming into the finish. Rainbow Unicorns and Ya mule Clunkers got to Mackie basically at the same time, but Justin and Molly had a faster transition and ran into the woods quickly for the last race section - an aerial map course. In the end, Rainbow Unicorns had the fastest split on the last aerial map and won the race! Way to go Justin and Molly!!!!! They were followed by Ya Mule Clunkers and then Elkbones. However, Adventure North had a very fast split on that map also. We had great finishes by other divisions and congrats also go to first place all-female team Ya mule 180....nice job Paula and Pam.......and nice finish by our Masters team Comfortably Numb Jeff and Dave!
What most of you don?t know is that there is quite a story out about Jeff and Dave. Rumor had it that last year, they were on their way to a big adventure race and their car broke down. There was no way Jeff and Dave were going to miss that AR, so they did what any AR team would do, they borrowed a vehicle (ok they stole it) but only until the race was over. But rumor has it, they were busted for that and had to do a stretch of time in the big house. Our AR community felt bad for them, and after talking to our AR clubs of Fat Otter, Race for the Booty, CARA and Ya Mule, we decided to talk to the judge about springing them for some community service (actually the SKMC race). We then talked to Jeff and Dave and they agreed to it and so the story goes..............(okay, we're kidding but seriously their costumes made for a great story - just ask the cop that pulled them over on their bikes - really!)
Hope to see all of you again...........WARS!
