The Best Darn Adventure Racing Company in TEXAS!
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The Best Darn Adventure Racing Company in TEXAS! |
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Picture CD's with around 800 pictures taken by Jonathan Sutton and Rattlesnake Racing will be available for order Monday, May 6, for $15 plust tax. A total of $16.24. Please send check or money order made out to Rattlesnake Adventure Sports Gear and request for the RRRC 2002 Picture CD to 514 N. 1st, Haskell, TX 79521. A video of the RRRC 2002 will be available in late May or early June. 4th Annual Rock, Roll and Rattlesnake Challenge 2002 April 30, 2002 For Immediate Release Haskell, TX - "Once
again, Rattlesnake Racing has set the standard of adventure racing in Texas and
surrounding states," said adventure racer and RRRC 2002 finisher Randal Huebner. The three day Rock, Roll, and
Rattlesnake Challenge started Thursday, April 25, and participants raced in extreme
weather and harsh conditions thru Saturday, April 27, 2002.
The three day, 100 plus mile race forced skilled and experienced adventure
racers to push their bodies and minds to the extreme.
The West Texas flavor and
hospitality of the RRRC 2002 started right off with a calf scramble to start the race. Each team had to chase down a calf in the local
rodeo arena and remove a ribbon from its tail before starting the 17 mile dirt road
mountain bike ride to Lake Stamford, which was surprisingly full this year after five
years of drought. As teams arrived at Lake
Stamford, team captains received surprise instructions to build a raft to paddle across
the lake. Each team had four inner tubes,
four 1 X 4's six feet long and 50 feet of rope. Each
team's boat design was unique. Some raft
designs worked better than others, but none could effectively cut the 15 to 20 mile per
hour winds Lake Stamford is well known for. Team’s
paddled their creations a seemingly endless mile into the wind until they were given the
option to walk the raft along shore to another planned 800 meters of paddling across the
cove to the take out point. However, a West Texas storm
was brewing and getting a little too close for comfort.
Race Director Leiza Morales, Game Warden Steve Barbour, Haskell County
Sheriff David Haliburton and Search and Rescue Tech Joe Yates made the call to ferry teams
across the water to avoid any problems with lightning from the approaching thunderstorm. Barbour and Haliburton quickly pulled teams across
the water to the takeout in the order to not affect the rankings or time between the
teams. By the time the last team had been
pulled from the lake, temperatures had dropped to 40 degrees F and rain was pelting the
area. Racers then portaged their
rafts another 600 meters before giving up the water in favor of their bikes. Each team had a 2-mile ride on paved road to
L&N South Paint Creek Cattle Ranch. Teams
took a short break with their support crews then left for an 18-mile muddy, gooey, mt.
bike on the ranch. The pouring rain and red
clay forced most of the biking leg into a mix of hike-a-bike and short rides between stops
to remove gooey mud from brakes and drivetrains. The
rough, wet terrain proved hard on equipment. Team
Pushin' Up Daisies broke two derailers, forcing P.U.D. support crew to dig deep into the
three spare mt. bikes they had brought. Other
teams were not as fortunate, as Team Wild Blue AR suffered a broken crank and pedal, and
subsequently damaged the only spare bike they could find.
Many teams had multiple flats and will definitely heed pre-race instructions
to use self-sealing tubes and tire liners next year. As teams returned from the
L&N bike leg the rain continued. Teams
took breaks, dried off and changed clothes to begin the 12-mile trek on L&N. The rain continued past 3:30 am when the last team
finished the L&N trek. Teams endured cold
rain, river crossings and sticky mud to complete this section of the race. After completing the trek and
mt. bike on L&N the racers biked 26-miles on County dirt roads to Krooked River Ranch. In dry conditions this ride is a nice, fast ride
on maintained roads. However, the massive
rainfall turned the road surface to soup. Some
sections could not be ridden and other sections allowed only a very slow speed. The top two teams had left L&N on this ride
before 8 pm on Thursday evening. The bottom
teams arrived at Krooked River around 3 pm on Friday.
The Krooked River / Hendrick
Ranch includes 40,000 acres encompassing over 30 miles of the Clear Fork of the Brazos
River. At Krooked River teams had a 12-mile
trek and a 25-mile trek to finish before moving on to the kayaking and last mt. bike. Race directors Leiza Morales and Jim McTasney
warned teams that points across the river would be cancelled if the river level rose
rapidly due to the heavy rains. The top two
teams left for the first trek around 1 am Friday morning.
At 4 am the river level was low and normal.
Lead Team Smoked Eggs and Team Tri-Army West crossed the river between 6:20
am and 7:00 am Friday. The river rose five
feet in ten minutes around 7:20 am Friday morning. The
river was at a level that skilled teams could swim, but it could not be crossed with
shallow swift water techniques, which was Rattlesnake Racing’s guideline for crossing
the river. Rattlesnake Racing did not
want any teams attempting to swim the swollen river for safety reasons. Race organizers moved quickly to cancel all points
across the river and let all teams know of the changes.
The location of the two teams already across the river was pinpointed using
checkpoint sign-ins. A helicopter
provided by Krooked River Ranch for safety and film crews was put in the air at first
break in the weather. Helicopter pilot
Kevin Dodd located Smoked Eggs and Tri-West Army and transported them across the river to
continue the race. The six ranked teams and
four unranked teams left in the race were all on the first trek on Krooked River Ranch by
Friday evening. Rattlesnake Racing originally
set the race up for racers to trek to the kayaks with second trek on Krooked River. As the river was still rising when the top two
teams headed out on the second trek, the contingency plan for a swollen river had to be
put in place. Safety is the number one
concern for race organizers and the river was not safe to paddle at night. The decision was made to make the second trek an
out and back, increasing the length, and creating a timed dark zone until Saturday morning
to complete the paddling leg on the Clear Fork of the Brazos. The final element of the contingency plan required
the cancellation of the last mt. bike leg to allow enough time for the paddle, sparing the
remaining racers from another 20+ miles of “mud-slogging”, a term coined by
Marcy Beard of Team Vignette. The rising river did create a
few problems for some teams. One team thought
they would get a jump on the other teams and staged their boats away from the staging area
and closer to the river. The team almost paid
dearly for not following the staging area instructions.
The two Prion tandem sit-insides were picked up by the edge of the cresting
floodwaters, which filled the boats with river mud (and a few river critters) and
deposited them several hundred meters downstream. A
few feet closer to the river and the two boats would have taken a 90-mile trip to Possum
Kingdom Lake downstream. Fortunately, the
boats were located by helicopter and retrieved by Eddie Glover of Team Eco-Oklahoma, a
racer who turned volunteer after pulling out of the race early on day two. One of the team members found a dead fish in her
boat while paddling on Saturday. All teams were dark zoned
Friday evening and early Saturday morning after they finished the second trek on Krooked
River. Teams times were stopped until the
decision to paddle or not to paddle was made. Two
teams, P.U.D. and Wild Blue AR, raced non-stop, as they did not finish the trek in time to
hit the dark-zone. Support crews carried
teams and gear the 22 miles to the kayak/canoe put-in.
Teams started the paddle at 9 am Saturday morning. The river had receded to near normal levels, but
due to the rain two days earlier the slightly higher water level created a very fun and
fast 16-mile paddle section with no portages. The
river level even allowed for a few rapid sections. The
16-mile paddle took three to six hours for all teams.
Racers finished on the river near the Krooked River Ranch Outfitters Lodge. Krooked River Ranch
Outfitters sponsored the awards ceremony and dinner at the lodge Saturday evening. Teams ate well and many stayed to relax and
reminisce about the memories created over the previous three days. Teams will also see
additional coverage of their efforts due to the presence of Discovery Health & Fitness
Channel and partnering film crews covering the racecourse.
The coverage is to be used in an upcoming segment on safety and health
issues in various sporting events, and Discovery was attracted to the RRRC’s mix of
physical, mental and team work challenges. The Rock, Roll and
Rattlesnake Challenge, in its four years of existence, has definitely been a race that has
created incredible memories. Each year racers
experiences a wide range of conditions: from dry hot drought, temperatures soaring to 115
degrees F, temperatures dropping to 36 degrees F and non-stop rain for 20 hours. Racers must come to this race prepared for any
kind of weather and be ready for terrain that creates over 7,000 feet of elevation gain
and loss, and you pay dearly for every foot. The RRRC 2002 was a fantastic
success. The town of Haskell has really
“gotten bit” by the adventure racing bug.
The local volunteers, businesses and chamber of commerce are already
planning for next year’s race. The
RRRC was started to create a positive economic impact on the rural city of Haskell and
surrounding areas. The primary financial
beneficiary is the Haskell County Library, which receives a portion of race proceeds each
year. Once again the race achieved its goals
and was a huge success. - 30 -
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Send mail to
leiza@rattlesnakeracing.com with questions or comments about Rattlesnake Racing.
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