BDA Exeter 2011
It's all about controlling that Rage...and Mojitos!
(By Kevin aka Asbo)
Pics on the way...
River courses always throw up some unpredictability in a race, whether it be wind or currents or just random patches of shallow water, you can just never tell what's going to happen - and especially at Exeter where the course is really quite narrow and you have solid brick walls either side of the river. Indeed this unpredictability reared it's ugly head as Rage jumped down onto the boat to paddle up for our first race.
Watching Henley and the home team, Execalibre, racing down the course you could tell something was going to happen as for some unknown reason, the Henley helm decided to cross over into Execalibre lane. With both teams at full racing speed, the Helm for Execalibre lost control of the boat, and the boat turned a full 90 degrees and was travelling (dragon) head first straight into the wall. With everyone watching events unfold, the paddlers managed to slow the boat down, but it wasn't enough. The dragonhead went straight into the wall and with a sickening crunch the dragon was no more. The whole world seem to come to a stand still, the world that is apart from Worcester Dragonflies, who avoided all the shenanigans and race home (to cheers from all the BDA crews) to claim a famous win against these two established crews. However the drama was not yet over, both teams still sorting themselves at the 100m mark, suddenly realised that a race was to be finished, and amazingly both teams rushed to realign themselves and battle it out to the finish line, made all the more remarkable as Exeter's dragonhead fell off while racing - sinking to the bottom of the river - just like Execalibre's chances of winning their home regatta.
Having just seen those events unfold, Rage turned back to see it's own helm, Dan G, fiddling with the steering oar... with every individual privately praying that he doesn't race the dragonboat like he races his Porsche...!!
As the non seeded team in the heats, there was every possibility that we would be racing against one of the top teams in the league, but to our obvious delight, we managed to draw Secklow and Execalibre Scratch. This race was winnable and with it a place in the major semi finals, not taking anything for granted however we lined up - heads down and BOOM - we were off. A slightly slower start, we managed to just edge infront of Secklow where we stayed the entire length of the race, with a strong build section and a powerful finish we obviously crossed the line in first place. So it was to our obvious shock horror, that the organizers announced Secklow having won the race, with Rage 0.8 seconds behind! With obvious shock horror, our Cap'n went to the race official and demanded a video replay of the race - or indeed to perhaps just slap em around a bit. With race officials having come to their senses, Rage were awarded first place winning comfortably 2seconds ahead of Secklow (54.3 vs 56.5)
Our Major Semi finals pitted us against the reinstated Execalibre team (it was deemed that Execalibre were not at fault for the crash, and was reinstated into the race... no home team favouritism though i'm sure) and Typhoon. The race started, and once again Rage were left at the start line, Execalibre pulled away and were looking to continue pulling away - much like what they did against us earlier on in the season. But this new Rage team has more heart and more courage and more potential then any other team in the BDA, and come the half way mark we started clawing them back, inch by inch we were gaining, we hit our power transitions beautifully - and we continued to gain to the finish line. This time Execalibre had won, just, given another 25metres or so though - we would've had them (52.3s vs 51.5). What a turn around from earlier in the season where Execalibre comfortably beat us by 3 seconds. Based on times and times alone we would've made it through to the Major finals, but no worries, we'd done enough to get through to the Minor finals for the 3rd time this season.
So the Minor finals, and low and behold, our two LRC rivals were there waiting for us. Typhoon and 'Thames' (although Thames were paddling with paddlers from Batchworth, Typhoon, Tao AND Rage - so despite calling them Thames... they really were just a rag tag of people turning up to race...!). Rage were ready, Rage were psyched and Rage were ready to win - however - it seems that Typhoon, for once, didn't read the script. If there was a race where we demonstrated to everyone how not to race, this was it - and what a time to do it. We. were. horrible. Our start was terrible, this meant that our transition wasn't bang on, we panicked and we started shortening our strokes, Typhoon and Thames were neck and neck with us. We panicked again. We missed our Power transition, and we frantically paddled to the finish line. Three teams finished neck and neck, but deep down we knew that we had missed out on this opportunity. And thus gifting Typhoon their first (and hopefully only) win over Rage this season. Typhoon were delighted, Rage were disappointed. Second in the race, 5th overall - not a bad result at all, but it could've been so much more.
Disappointment aside, the sun was still shining, and spirits were still high! We started our 450m schedule once again against Crusaders. Top of the standard league, Crusaders are a strong 500m team. And proved it once again in the heats, we were the seeded team in this heat but Crusaders pushed us every inch of the way. Obviously under the watchful eye of our sponsors, the team had just enough to keep them at bay. A strong time of 1:43:44 saw us through to the major semi finals.
So the major 450m cup semi finals. Up against TAO and Hurricanes - 4th and 6th in the 500m premier league tables respectively. Both strong and experienced teams, and we've lost in the 500m every time we've come up against these teams this season. We headed up to the start line, relaxed, probably knowing that we had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Down and ready. Attention. Go. Once again, the team was left behind at the start, but we did not panic. We did not lose sight of either team. We counted the number of strokes, we knew our race plan, everyone stuck to the race plan, we were gaining. Then came the dreaded 3rd quarter, we always drop off at this point as our stamina never holds. Not this time. We went longer, we sat up, we didn't collapse our stoke, Wan the helm was going crazy, he saw what was happening, we were closing. Our transition to the power was crucial, we nailed it - we had the power, past Hurricanes we went, Tao were within our grasp, 50 metres left. Every single stroke counting, every ounce of energy given for the team. Buzzers went - did we do it? No one knew.
Warming down, I could see the smile coming from the helm as he came back from the score board, we did it. From the disappointment in the 200m to the pure elation in getting to the 450m Major final. Let no one take this achievement away from Rage. This team, with all it's new paddlers (only 8 of this team paddled this time last year in Exeter), with it's new start sequences, new race patterns new coaching styles shouldn't have been able to do what we did. But perhaps, finally we're fulfilling that potential that we know this team has.
The major finals against Worcester and Execalibre. We were determined to exorcise those 200m demons, let's race our own race, let's not get dictated by what other teams do, let's not panic - let's do the best that RAGE can do. Perhaps not surprisingly Worcester and Execalibre were too good for us on the day, but we raced our own race - and even in the slow lane, lane 3, we posted our fastest time of the day. (1:40:21) Something to be proud of.
So as Eggtart goes up to collect Rage's trophy and with Bart taking down the Raging Dragons flags (yes, that's right, thanks to Bart, Raging Dragons now has flags that we can now proudly hoist up at BDA events...) what can we conclude from this weekends proceedings?
Mojito's are the fuel for Raging Dragons :)
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