Was that only 3 days? What a crazy whirlwind of epicness! Your race Director feels like he just competed in another X-Alps (ok not quite!). I am crushed and seriously sleep-deprived and feel like I hiked all those mountains with you all (again- not quite- ha ha!), but I’m still planted firmly on cloud nine about how the inaugural XRedRocks went down. The weather served it up to us this week on a magnificent goblet of golds and reds and provided perfect conditions to fly (and hike) hard tasks, which was exactly what we’d hoped.
For all my talk of only one person getting an award, I wish I could have given each and every one of you a big hug for being safe and truly giving it your all- AWESOME effort! All the athletes made safe decisions, flew within their ability, we had an accident-free comp and man- I sure saw a lot of huge smiles this week.
The real story of the race belongs to our Adventure Division athletes. I was honestly pretty worried about the lack of hours that many of our participants had going into the race. When our task committee (Bill Belcourt, Matt Dadam, Reavis Sutphin-Gray, Ben Walker and myself) sat down every morning we kept talking about keeping the Adventure tasks relatively short and safe. We didn’t need to. They…well they crushed. Erik the “Hammer” Klammer was first to launch every day. His “Colorado Crushers” brethren – Taylor Rice, Jared Scheid, Carl Marvin and Isaac Lammers were always right on his heels. On day two a whole gaggle of the adventure crew (again lead by the Hammer) also launched first from Mt Edna, which is high and committing, especially launching into the SE facing canyon, which doesn’t offer a lot (any?) bail-out options. The first pilot launched, immediately dialed up to cloudbase several thousand feet over the peaks and made quick time of the course, landing and sprinting at full speed the final half mile to goal, arriving within meters of one-another. STELLAR effort you all!
On the final day the course for the two divisions was almost identical. The Hammer ate the hike to Monroe in an absurd 52 minutes, quickly unpacked and launched when it was still katabatic (see above). His strategy? Why wait? Make as much ground as possible in the air to the Joseph cyclinder in the flats, tag the turnpoint, race back to the terrain, climb fast, relaunch and make mincemeat of the course. He was in GOAL before any of the Pros had gotten back to Monroe Peak to make their top land, but fair enough- Monroe is 5000′ high off the valley floor and the Pros were taking a different strategy as the flying out over the flats was tricky at best and they had a very tough southern turnpoint before goal. A bomb-out on this final day would spell doom, As many soon discovered. Kevin Carter found a wicked line back from the Joseph cylinder and was the first to top land Monroe Peak, chased in short order by Bill Belcourt who along with Matt Dadam had been forced well south of course line to find a climb in the low terrain and then pushed upwind to tag the Monroe TP, showing their wicked tenacity and experience. In the end about 10 of the Adventure Division made goal with a mixture of serious hustle and effort while the Pros relied on their flying ability but the day was ruled by hustle. No Pros made goal, but Kevin Carter nearly made it in after a beastly flying effort and making a sexy move at the last TP. He won the day in the Pro Division flying well on day that turned out to be really tricky in the air. Huge congratulations to Pam Kinnaird in the Adventure Division for her first goal!
In the Adventure Division, the overall winner was Eric Klammer, who won the foot race to the top all three days and flew really well; followed by Jared “fast packer” Scheid who tied for the win on day 2 and had an epic race; and in 3rd we had another of the Colorado crusher team, Carl Marvin. Incredible performances by this whole Division and can’t wait to see you all in the PRO division next year!
In the PRO Division we saw a lot of very cool moves in the skies and a lot of changes as the race developed, but the story was owned by one of the sports biggest legends, Matt Dadam. He’s been flying an average of 30 hours a year the past few years with responsibilities at home and at work taking precedent, but that certainly didn’t show this week. He was the only pilot to topland the first turnpoint on day one (sexy move dude!) and kept it together in style the remaining two days to fend off Bill Belcourt who charged hard with a win on an epic flying day on day 2 and then followed it by making a series of strong moves in the air fighting it out in tough conditions on the final day to nail second place behind Kevin Carter (who tied for 5th overall). 5-time Red Bull X-Alps competitor Honza Rejmanek was the only pilot in the Pro class to fly a B wing and showed his skills by sliding into 3rd place after a great final day. What is Dadam going to use the $5,000 prize for? A new wing of course!
See below for the full results.
We also had some fun awards that need mention:
Bill Belcourt– longest distance in one go on the ground (30 miles, day one), then task win next day proving we don’t need a Masters Division in this game!
Jacilyn Hayden, best heads-up canyon side-hill landing and walk out attitude- you rock girl!
Arash Farhang– best top landing touch and go on Monroe AND Poverty on the final day!
Best team- the Colorado crushers. Erik “the Hammer” Klammer, Taylor Rice, Carl Marvin, Isaac Lammers, and Jared “fast packer” Scheid
The weather!
Best waypoint guru- Reavis Sutphin Gray!
First Goal- Pam Kinnaird
I can’t possibly thank everyone who deserves thanks, but of course the CUASA crew and everyone who made this possible (what an organization!!!!), and special thanks to Aaron Price for providing what turned out to be really tricky tracking and scoring (thank you dude!), Reavis Sutphin-Gray for putting in the hard yards on all the waypoints, Bill Belcourt, Stacy and Judy Whitmore (the SUPERHOSTS!), Jef “makes it happen” Anderson, Jeff Parker (retrieve Guru!), Ben Walker, Matt Dadam, CUASA AGAIN!, the weather (I love you!), Ben Horton (imagery master), Bill Beninati (medical Jedi), Bart “faster video editor in the world” Garton, all the volunteers – especially my launch / safety crew- Tyler, Lyndsey, Chris, Blake, and Dave! I love you all, thank you for making my job so “easy”!
So that’s a wrap. I’m going to bed for a day and will no doubt be dreaming of the psychedelic colors and smiles this year’s XRedRocks delivered. Fly Safe, Fly Far, and GOODNIGHT!
