On Friday March 31st, Ben, George, Taylor, Thomas, Will and Sandrine gathered at the LAKs office before heading to Grassflat, PA to compete in the Red Mo Race.
This 7-mile race was organized on class II/III Moshannon Creek. It was open to crafts of all sorts and shapes, from stand-up paddle boards to canoes, rec boats, sea kayaks and, of course, wildwater boats. This was going to be the first race of the year for all of us and also the first race ever for Taylor and for the new LAKS wildwater team. Taylor and Ben were to compete in long boats whereas Will, Thomas, Geroge and Sandrine would paddle their Wavehoppers.
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| Team LAKS about to take the road |
After our Atlanta adventure and the scares that Tom's Little Gray Van had given us about a month before, LGV had spent some quality time at the repair shop and we were all hoping that our drive to Pennsylvania would be a breeze. Ben, Will and Sandrine would drive in the van while George, Taylor and Thomas would drive in George's car.
We were moving along, making headway towards our destination. Time was flying by in the Little Gray Van where Ben, Will and Sandrine were chatting along, while listening to some dubstep, rap and other good tunes, all courtesy of DJ/copilot Will. While Sandrine was driving, Ben and Will had the arduous task to keep the music going. This was no easy undertaking because of the defective cassette-tape adapter. Ben's role was to hold the cable in some awkward position that would keep the device working and Will ensured the "vocal backup". He had to sing and "fill the blanks" every time the music would be interrupted. Both did an excellent job and their team work kept the music going for most of the time. Will even outdid himself by "guiding" all of us on a nocturnal scenic tour of some obscure areas of Pennsylvania. :))
After a few wrong turns and about three hours on the road, the rain started and... the van stopped... Despite the time spent in repair, LGV's tolerance for rain had not improved. We were forced to stop multiple times. George, Thomas and Taylor were following us closely and patiently in case LGV would give up completely. If we were to make it to our destination, this was going to be a long trip. And long it was! Instead of arriving at our motel around 10:30 or 11 as expected, we made it to Nowhere, PA (also known as Kylertown) at 1:30 am. After the van gave us all these difficulties, you would think that nothing else could have gone go wrong! Well, think again! For a while we really thought that we were going to be forced to camp in the rainy cold:
First, we could not find our motel. When we finally found it, the office was closed. We drove to a gas station nearby to inquire about this slight problem and managed to get the name of the "key keeper". We looked for the man who would give us access to a warm, dry and comfortable bedroom. He turned out to be a "she" but this was the least of our worries. The nice lady checked us in and gave us our oh so coveted key!! In the meantime, our team fashionista decided to throw in a little "gas station fashion show".
We were more than ready to get in our room and finally get some rest when we found out that the key would not unlock the door. It is only after about 5 or 10 minutes of discussion about the fact that the room number could be a 6 or a 9 that Will, by some miracle, managed to open the door. Yay Will! Our hero!!
The room was finally ours! Hooray! But... it could accommodate 5 people and it was the six of us there. How were we going to make this slumber party work?
The guys generously offered the cot to Sandrine (How sweet was that?!). First problem solved.
The next question was to decide who was going to sleep on the floor. After lengthy deliberations and a few rock-paper-scissors games, Ben ended up on the carpet.
At this point (passed 2 am), we decided that getting up at 5:30 or 6 am to do a practice run to figure out the race course was out of the question. We were going to "wing it".
The next morning, after a copious breakfast, we headed to the race put-in to register and get ready to race. Everybody seemed pretty pumped-up and ready to paddle hard and give their best.
And who forgot his shoes and borrowed Thomas flip-flops?
We won't tell...Ahem...
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| Strategy or trash talk meeting ? |
The river turned out to be extremely low and the short section we could see from the put-in looked very shallow. We did not know what to expect for the rest of the course.
The slowest crafts were scheduled to leave first, so we patiently waited for our turn to launch. After a solid hour wait, we all cheered on as Ben and Taylor started their race. The Wavehoppers were in the two last heats, with other wildwater boats.
The race turned out to be extremely scrapy. The river was so low that it was difficult to get any glide out of our boats. Another challenge was to pass the slower competitors who had launched before we did.
Despite the less than ideal conditions, the members of Team LAKS poured all they had into the race and ended up with honorable rankings.
In particular, Ben placed third in the Men K1 category!!
CONGRATS BEN!!
Taylor ranked fourth behind Ben and the Wavehoppers (placed in a separate category) proved to be competitive as well. The complete race results are available here.
Despite a few mishaps and less than ideal race conditions, this was a fun time and a good opportunity for Team LAKS to cut their teeth on a first local race.
