Results for '10

Results for '09

Results for '08

The predicted rain never appeared and we had a beautiful warm day for the 4th annual Blast. Over 110 racers arrived to a quiet Depot Park on Saturday, June 4th. Racers scrambled to get their gear bags packed in the trailer and sign an additional waiver before the pre-race meeting. That is when the racers found out they were getting a pony ride as part of the race. Well, really one team member would ride the horse and the other would lead the horse. Some racers were happy and some were a little nervous.

Adding the horse stage gave the racers a lot of options and made for a lot of questions at the pre-race meeting. Racers were given maps and directions and went their own seperate ways to start planning.

The race start was going to be at the north end of the park with the bikes staged at the south end near the tent. Gary asked all the racers with the map to continue following him so they could make a slight change on the map. It was trick. He was really taking the racers to the east side of the park where they would be blindfolded and had to wait for their partner to come and get them.

Andrea then told the racers to go and they ran to get their blindfolded partner and lead them back to the race start were they could remove their blindfold. It was was a fun site watching race partners hold hands at the start of the race.

Next they biked to the riding stable at Pontiac Lake Recreation Area. There they all had a chance to ride or lead a horse for 20-25 minutes on the horse trails. Most of the time bikers and horse's don't mix, but everyone seem to enjoy the horse ride. Racers also had 6 CP's to choose from in that area that they had to get on foot with only 3 required. Most racers decided to get more than the 3 and ran out of time on the canoe portion of the race.

Next it was on the bike again to do part of the mountain bike course. Racers had three choices of routes to take with the harder route getting them 3 CP's while the easiest route would get them 1 CP. Only one was needed but again many racers opted to get all 3.

They exited the bike course and did another 3 point O courseon foot with only 1 required. The hard part was two of them forced the racers to climb some pretty steep hills but if they took time to look the view was lovely, and they could see where they would be paddling after another short bike ride.

Racers biked to the canoe put-in located in a subdivision on the east side of Maceday Lake and had to navigate back to Depot Park using the Clinton River waterways. There were two CP's available with only 1 required. The current at the bridge under Dixie Highway was strong making it faster to get out and push the canoe rather than trying to paddle hard against the current. Racers then finished right at the park.

Gary's watch said the race started 5 minutes late while Marcia said her's was 8 minutes late. In the end we gave the racers till 2:08:59 to finish and be a ranked team. The canoe portion was harder than most people planned for with the wind picking up in the afternoon and going against the current.

There was lots of pizza, salad, breadsticks and cookies to help the racers refuel while the results were totaled. It was especially difficult because many of the volunteers that should have been at the finish were transporting racers. Twelve racers were so lost they had to be transported by one of the volunteers. Speaking of volunteers, this was a GREAT group of volunteers. The logistics of moving gear bags and over 110 bikes back to the finish in a short period put a strain on our volunteers. So a BIG thanks to all of them

Kate Golm
Rick Schlager
Josh Squires
Kim Squires
Jacob
Mike Schons
Dan
Shawn/Diane Hamilton
Laurie
Matt Johnson
Terri Kaczor

All in all it was tough race if you decided to go for extra points. Ed Broadbear and Team Jeep (Darrin Soukup and John Hufstedler) cleared the course at 1:12 PM. Twenty-minutes later LSG (Chad Lambertand and Chris Stroud) also came in with all 23 points.Taking first place in the 2 person female division was Which Way? (Therese Durham and Veronica Johnstone). The first place coed was Wolverine Sports Club (Katie Ibach and Jim Jume).

Our sponsors donated some great prizes as all that stayed for the award ceremony will agree. Brian Matthews gave an emotional recap of their lives since Ridge came into their lives. We raised over $700 for the Matthew's family. Brian also had side wagers that raised a couple hundred dollars for the Kidney Foundation.

Now it was time for the grand prize drawing of a new Trek bike donated by American Cycle and Fitness. The winner was Hal LeDuc from Team Iron Tank. He also happend to be the same person that one the bike last year! Much to our surprise Hal donated the bike to Brian Matthew's and his family! A great ending to a great day. Thanks again to all you racers that had a BLAST this year.

Kim took hundreds of pictures that should be posted by Tuesday.

Preliminary results are posted.

Thanks again to everyone that came out to volunteer, sponsor or race. We couldn't do it without you!!

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Final Results Sheet

Racer Instructions

Map 1

Pictures

Video