BDA Worcestor 2009

Racing on a busy river, blown engine, broken steering arm...what a day!

Another day another BDA event… this time in Worcester.

After the drama (minibus going AWOL), pain, sleep deprivation, adrenalin rushed (from great racing), euphoric (winning trophies!) weekend that was Preston, Team Rage was heading West to compete with 18 other crews. We did not manage to get two teams out but we still managed more than enough for one team plus reserves and Dog! :)

Of course, being my own version of the event makes it somewhat partial and subjective… but I’ll try and remain as neutral as I can. It will, of course, include accounts of my travels….

The day started at 5.30am… there was no need for hotel arrangements or overnight stays as the venue is around 2 hours drive away. I had to make a pit stop in Bracknell to pick up SuChuen for her one and only race with Rage before she returns to the US (hopefully she will return in the near future!). Already 15mins behind my intended ETA, I made up time on the M4 and was anticipating a 8.15am arrival time to help unload the boat.

However all good intentions were soon dispelled when ingenious hanging roads signs indicated the closure of the M4 at junction 13… Ok… so a speeding police car had zoomed by which probably meant there was an accident of some sort, but surely not the closure of the motorway? I continued on the M4 and reached junction 13. It was open and it was clear. I carried on through for around 4 miles before I reached a standstill behind no more than 10 cars. This was not good, but at least when we get going I would be clear of the scene quite quickly.

At this point it was 6.45am and we were a mere 72miles away from our destination and the TomTom indicated an arrival time of 8.06am… Considering our first race was at 10.25am I had 2hours leeway to play with. I thought it was an opportune time to get in contact with the team to notify them of my predicament and ensure everyone else has safe passage via other routes.

7.15am… engine turned off… send text message to team
7.30am… changes facebook status
8.00am… bored
8.30am… still bored
8.31am… steps out of car and stands on the motorway for the first time
8.45am… traffic response person asks everyone to turn their cars around
9.00am… car turned and lined up ready to drive up the wrong way of the motorway
9.15am… lanes alternate leaving and I missed out by 3 cars and had to wait...
9.45am… FINALLY is my turn to leave and a traffic patrol vehicle escorts around 30-40 cars to junction 13
9.50am and we were finally back on track a mere 3 hours later and having to make up a further 25miles due to taking the A34 and M40 instead of the original M4 route! I need to make up time so I travelled at 70mph all the way!!!

We arrived at the venue and made our way to the Rage Camp where all I found was a little dog tied to a post! Poor Kenji had no one with him because Rage was racing against Typhoon Tigers at the time! Unfortunately we missed the race and we lost narrowly by 0.5s which meant that we were out of the 200m semi finals. Everyone was a bit down and disheartened when they returned and from what I gathered from various people is that they were still suffering from last night or a case of travel ‘sickness’ due to arriving later than anticipated and not being 100% race focused. But it’s no excuse as all the other teams, bar Worcester, faced similar problems.

Anyway… on to race 2. 200m for placing in the 450m races. We were still reeling from our initial loss and because I had only just arrived I didn’t really want to race as there was little at stake. However, we were short of ‘lefties’ and I can make some of that up with my slim figure. Lethargic is the word I would use for our race start… it was not pretty and it was not good. But we pulled through and finished the race. Not where we wanted to be… but there was nothing we can do now. 450m next up.

Onto the 450m races… our start improved, but the lane allocation did not bode well for us and we drifted in second in the heat. But we posted a fairly good time and that enabled us to be put into the middle lane for the repechage. Personally I would like to blame Raymond for getting the team onto the boat and to the start line first. Not just first in our race… but FIRST out of all the teams including the teams who were in the THREE races before us!

Repechages… It was redemption time. So the competition wasn’t fierce and we were effectively paddling for pride… but boy did we respond. The start was clean and powerful and we pulled distance on our competitors by the start of our reach strokes. We maintained a steady rhythm and edged further and further ahead until the finish line where we were a clear boat length ahead.

With our spirits lifted and our pride restored, self belief crept in and we gathered for lunch.

There was a huge effort put in by Jenny Nim and Kitty who went around all the camps of all the teams pushing ticket sales for our raffle to fund a new team O1 boat. There was a great response from Team Rage too with Jimmy offering to double the total himself and Tin selling the paddle at half price for the raffle.

Now that the sun was shining on us (rare at BDA events!) we were ready for our next race. We didn’t make it to the Cup finals, but we were still in the Plate semis. We were still fighting for a high finish… and we didn’t disappoint. We emulated the repechage display and won in convincing manner to land in the Major Plate Final. This meant we were vying for a top finish of 7th place, or a worst finish of 9th place.

It seems that the Rage team is never without incident… warnings for being late to starts (not exclusive to Rage, but a common occurrence), capsizing (Bristol), broken steering arm (Preston)… and today was no different. And, of course, it only happens in the finals!

After a great start off the line in the Final race we were leading till around the midway mark where we ‘lost and engine’ on the right. Jim had pulled something and smoke was bellowing out like a plane on a downward spiral… but of course, we’re not a plane but a boat! SO to mimic this effectively we would break the steering arm AGAIN at the very same moment the ‘engine’ dies so we can veer to the right and try to emulate the capsize feel at Bristol… why do things half heartedly eh? But for once we managed to hold on and cross the line. No one knew who had won until the results were announced and we discovered we were beaten into second by 0.11s. All three crews finished in 1min 38s and were split by mere hundredths of a second! What a great race it must have been from a spectators point of view… and though we were disappointed to be ‘bridesmaid’ again we were still proud of our achievements on the day considering the start we had.

The final highlights of the day was watching the team trying to fold the tents into their original carrying case followed by the Raffle draw where we embarrassingly won all 3 items on offer. We let the first one go to Gaj for the Trivium paddle… the Champagne finally went to a Thames girl and the beers to Worcester…

Not the results we all wanted, but with a course that had barges, cruising boats and power boats interrupting at irregular intervals we made do with what we could. This obviously affects all crews and I’m not using this as an excuse. The truth is that we did not field a full strength team and we had a lot of inexperienced paddlers who were only attending their second race with only a couple of months training behind them. 16 members have not been with the club for more than 6 months and has a combined race experience of 26 races between them…

What we need as a team is more racing to get more experience… and for some of the old guys to come back to bring the experience and lead by example as shown in Preston. We are not a one race/event team. We should be racing and competing against the best teams in the country AS one of the best teams. Not just make up numbers…

We now have a second summer break from racing and to echo Jimmy’s email, we need to get stronger and fitter to ‘kill’ (a bit strong) the competition. Normal training resumes on Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings with circuit training on Thursday evenings and Run Club on Saturday mornings, as well as O1 time trials at any time.