May 18, 2004

The top 32 men were seeded based on a time trial on Saturday to compete for the cash in the Boatercross competition. Speedsters such as Scott Shipley, Ryan Casey, Andy Beddingfield, and more were found lining up on Saturday. I won the time trial, just ahead of second place finisher, Ryan Casey, and this dude from South Africa, which I just forgot his name and don’t know where to find it. I will call him the “Southern Star”. Sunday morning the races started at 10:00am. Emily did her races to get to the finals, and then the men did the same. 32 to 16, to 8, to 4. Scott Shipley, Ryan Casey, the Southern Star, Andy Beddingfield, Bryan Kirk, and I all battled hard to get to the final 8 along with several others. Ryan got taken out early in his bid for the finals. I had a battle with Andy and lost in an earlier round, but got paired with him and the Southern Star, and one other unfortunate soul for the semi-finals and came out swinging. I pulled the lead and had Andy on my tail when, to the surprise of everybody, the “Southern Star” made a move on Andy and cleared him for the pass to win his place in the finals along with me, Scott Shipley, and Brian Kirk.

There is strategy in a boatercross. If you know you aren’t as fast as somebody else, it is tempting to take them out at the start, in hopes of beating them in the paddle battle instead of the sprint. If you are at all experienced in Boatercross you also know that that is the poison pill that takes you out as effectively as your target, kind of like a Bonzai pilot trying to take out the general. Great strategy if you want somebody else to win. What usually happens is that one person pushes straight into another an ties them up and then the other two get out in front immediately and then those doing the fighting are 3rd and 4th.

Well, in the finals more than one person overheard Brian saying, “Let’s take EJ out at the start”. Of course, I am ½ deaf so I heard nothing and was sandwiched in between Scott Shipley and Brian Kirk, with Southern Star on the far left. Scott is really, really fast, and super aggressive, but not very experienced in boatercross. His bow was angled at mine at about 30 degrees and in one stroke he would be in contact. Brian was on my left and angled into my boat at 30 degrees also. I made the mistake of assuming that these guys would go for clear strokes over taking the poison pill, but boy was I wrong.

I had my body as far forward as I could lean to reach way ahead on my first stroke. The starter was very cleaver in saying, “15 seconds” then he would face away from us an hold the green flag by his side with zero motion. Then, randomly, he would flip the flag overhead with no warning and the race was one. Well, I got two strokes in that were both full power and effective but I had two paddles on my chest. One was Scott’s and one was Brian’s. Somewhere in my brain I was at least prepared for this, although not expecting it, and I got my paddle straight across both of them and just held on. I didn’t even try to take a stroke because there was no where to put my paddle. I just leaned on my back deck and kept my blades on their chests and let them drag me. They saw Southern Star make his move and start getting past us and I tried to pull myself in between them but when I pulled and went for a stroke Brian got one more stroke off of my chest and managed to spit his poison pill out. Now I am in 4th place but in better position to take the corner than Shipley and cut him off to gain 3rd. Meanwhile, Brian passes Southern Star and I have the advantage of superior speed to capitalize on Southern Star’s bad position caused by the pass and got a paddle over his bow and forced him back. Now I am less than half a boat behind Brian with about 10 seconds left in the race. I closed the gap and got my boat on his stern and forced him to the river left side but couldn’t force him into the rocks and still make the pass. I dropped off his stern and put my head down and sprinted along the narrow fast channel and jumped his wake to get within 2 feet of the win as we shot across the line. I have never seen the poison pill work before, and may never see it work again. Ultimately, it looked like Southern Star made a tactical error and should have gone to the left of the first rock to avoid the EJ/Brian/Scott mess altogether. Scott swallowed his pill and ended up fourth, but not without a fight.

Everybody who raced said that they loved it. It was the second time of the weekend to place second instead of first, oh well. Too many first places is bad for your skill and drive. I need to lose to get better. Because in the quest to win, losing makes you adjust and train to win. I got second two times in California only to be really hungry in Oregon where I won both the Oregon Cup and the Bob’s hole Rodeo. I am heading to the Potomac Festival and look forward to racing the Great Falls Race (my favorite extreme race) against those who are training full time for the Olympics. I was there, in 1996, that I organized the first International Extreme, head to head race under the World Kayak Federation Flag. To this day, I have a desire to watch and compete in races where it is battle.

EJ

Reno Boatercross finals line-up

Just getting in front of Shipley

In 4th place

In 2nd and closing

Going for the final pass, but failing