Results: March 13, 2011
First Water Score-O and Adventure Race

This month's Score-O at the First Water area in the Superstition Mountains was full of firsts. For the first time, the Score-O was part of larger race, a 5-hour Adventure Race. Created by Ron Birks, it was the first Adventure Race ever held by GPHXO. It was the first time we set up while it was still dark.....OK, maybe it wasn't quite dark, but it was pretty darned early! This was Gary Hickey's first time setting a Score-O course. Gary welcomes all feedback on the course, as he hopes to do more course setting in the future. We had a few new racers participate. And, it was the first race of the season where the heat became a real factor (sunny with temperatures in the upper 80's).

SCORE-O

We had a good turnout considering it was spring break season. The Score-O course was fairly challenging, with 19 controls for a total of 550 points. Route selection was critical because the higher value controls were spread out across the map and some were a bit difficult to reach. Many contestants were attracted by the high-value controls in the northeast part of the course, which is also more scenic. Ludwig Hill and Erik Ringnes made great runs and got very high scores, with Ludwig getting just a few more points than Erik. Martin Dimitrov scored a lot of points, but due to a time penalty, he was edged out by Leif "The Man In Blue" Lundquist and Tom Fleck (don't remember what color Tom was wearing, sorry!). Deb Allen continues to show improvement as she won the women's division with 150 points (5 controls). Peg Davis found 290 points (10 controls) but was 51 minutes over the time limit. It appears Peg took the extra time to really enjoy the scenery at the First Water event site. The Trunk Monkey team was the first place mixed team, and L&B won the all-Female Team division.

Thanks to everyone who came out and participated, and to all who helped with bag retrieval. Thanks to Ron and Erik for arranging the permit, a task that is much more difficult than most of us realize. No permit, no event, it's that simple. A special thanks to Sheryl Berling-Wolf for equipment hauling/setup/teardown, for explaining things to our new racers, and for jumping in wherever needed.

Five-Hour Adventure Race

Although we didn't get a huge turnout for our adventure race, we're happy with the event. After working out details for our permit with the Forest Service, we finally got the event announcement out a little more than 2 weeks before the race. This late announcement surely kept the number of participants down. Those that did participate seemed to enjoy the event. We will try to offer more short adventure races in the future. The race consisted of 3 parts:

UTM Plotting

Racers started by plotting 6 UTM coordinates on a USGS topo scaled to 1:10,000. After plotting, participants had to visit all 6 controls in any order. David Marks was the first through this part of the course, finishing in 46:11. Not far behind was team Boat Anchor finishing in 50:45. We accidentally added a couple of challenges for this portion of the event. While orienteering maps typically have lines indicating magnetic north, the lines on the USGS maps indicate true north. Also, the USGS maps we provided didn't indicate the 20-foot contour interval. We failed to mention these two important points during our pre-race meeting. Sorry for any confusion, we'll do better next time.

Bike-O

Once back from the UTM course, participants were provided a USGS topo scaled to 1:25,000 with 9 pre-plotted controls. As an added twist, we told racers that we would provide UTM coordinates for 5 more controls at some point during the race. Providing the coordinates during the race allowed us to design the race to have controls for both the out and back journey on Forest Road 78.

Dave and Windy Marks did well on the Bike-O portion of the race, clearing 12 of 14 controls. Unfortunately, they spent a great deal of time looking for control #8, a control located off the Siphon Draw trail not far from the Superstition Wilderness Area boundary. With a little luck, they would have certainly cleared all bike controls. Team Boat Anchor had their own adventure during the bike section. While returning back downhill on the Siphon Draw Trail, Bob Badgett's attention was reportedly distracted by a father and daughter hiking on the trail. My guess is that he was actually distracted by a few hiking coeds. While distracted, Bob hit a rock and was launched hard to the ground onto his elbow. With lots of blood and a large gash on his arm, Bob returned to the start to wash off, then drove himself to an urgent care center. We hope that after a few stitches, he's good as new. The bad part about the mishap is that Team Boat Anchor also didn't find control #8. We'll try to make sure the navigation challenges are not quite so difficult next time.

Score-O

For the final section of the race, participants searched for controls on the same map used during the Score-O event. David and Windy were able to collect 11 controls in 1:13. Team Lunatic Fringe and Walt Smith followed closely behind with 10 controls. Walt's overall finish was impacted by his doing the bike portion of the race without a bike. With a little more time on the Score-O portion, Walt could easily have challenged the overall race leaders.

Team BFC/Racelab finished as the overall winner having visited 29 controls. Team Lunatic Fringe, having visited a limited number of bike controls, used their navigation prowess on foot to come in second with 22 controls. Team Boat Anchor was close behind with 20 controls (and a bloody shirt). Even Glenn Haselfeld and his new-to-orienteering friend Bill Graves had a respectable day by collecting 17 controls.

Thanks to everyone who participated in today's race. Based on the input we received from the racers, it will be good to offer the AR-5 race format again in the future. I hope we're able to give more advanced notice before the next race.



Event Volunteers:

Thanks to all the volunteers. We cannot have meets without volunteers.

Course Setters: Gary Hickey (Score-O)
Ron Birks (AR-5)
Meet Directors: Gary Hickey, Ron Birks
Bag Hangers: Gary Hickey, Andy Allman, Calli Allman
Water Station Setup: None
Equipment Hauling: Sheryl Berling-Wolff
Setup/Tear-down: Sheryl Berling-Wolff, Ron Birks, Kathi Douglas, Bob Badgett, Tim Stefek, Kristin Peers, Glenn Haselfeld
Registration Table: Gary Hickey, Kathi Douglas, Sheryl Berling-Wolff, Ron Birks
Timing Table: Gary Hickey, Ron Birks
Beginners Clinic: Sheryl Berling-Wolff
Control Retrieval: Ludwig Hill, Leif Lundquist, Peg Davis, Glenn Haselfeld, Tim Stefek, Kristin Peers, Bill Graves, Ron Birks , Martin Dmitrov
Tabulating Results: Gary Hickey, Ron Birks


RESULTS:
(Send corrections to webmaster ) 

Categories:
                M - Male
                F - Female
                T - Team



Score-O Results
---------------

Total Points Possible:  550	
Number of Controls:     19	
Straight-Line Distance: 8.9 km	
Total Participants:     24	

Overall                  Total           # of
Place   Name             Points  Penalty Controls Time  Category Rank Team Members
------- ---------------- ------- ------- -------- ----- -------- ---- ----------------------------------------
1       Ludwig Hill      480     0       15       1:55  M        1	 
2       Erik Ringnes     460     0       16       1:57  M        2	 
3       Leif Lundquist   330     0       13       1:55  M        3	 
4       Tom Fleck        280     0       10       2:00  M        4	 
5       Martin Dimitrov  250     120     13       2:12  M        5	 
6       Trunk Monkey     230     10      8        2:01  TX       1    Jill Kyle, Rick Eastman
7       Deb Allen        150     0       5        1:54  F        1	 
8       Austin & Chelsea 120     0       8        1:50  TX       2    Austin Ringnes, Chelsea Ringnes
9       L & B            120     0       5        1:59  TF       1    Loretta Coffman, Brigid O'Neil
10      Team Fedyk       110     0       6        1:53  TX       3    Tatiana Fedyk, Mashi Fedyk, Yurii Fedyk
11      Hilary Barton    100     0       5        1:38  F        2	 
12      Bob Wolf         100     0       5        1:53  M        6	 
13      Gary Parkinson   100     100     7        2:10  M        7	 
14      Rick Burris      70      0       5        1:42  M        8	 
15      Julie Calderwood 70      0       6        1:39  F        3	 
16      Mike Cagle       -60     410     8        2:41  M        9	 
17      Peg Davis        290     510     10       2:51  F        4	 
Rec     William Stevens  Rec     Rec     5        2:47  M       Rec	 
Rec     Kurt Korpong     Rec     Rec     12       3:59  M       Rec	

* Ten points were deducted for each full minute over the 2-hour time limit.

Adventure Race Results
----------------------

UTM Best Route Distance: 3.5 km
Bike Best Route Distance: 22 km
Score-O Best Route Distance: 12.5 km

                     |-------- Time ----------------|------ Controls ------| 
Name                 UTM     Bike    Score-O Overall UTM Bike Score-O Penalty Total Team Members
-------------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --- ---- ------- ------- ----- ---------------------------------------
David Marks          0:46:11 2:59:31 1:13:29 4:59:11  6   12    11     0      29   David Marks, Windy Marks
Lunatic Fringe       1:36:24 1:26:16 1:52:24 4:55:04  6   6     10     0      22   Phil Milan, Charles Phillips
Boat Anchor          0:50:45 3:05:58 1:01:05 4:57:48  6   8     6      0      20   Bob Badgett, Kristin Peers, Tim Stefek
Walt Smith           2:03:22 1:45:38 0:40:03 4:29:03  6   2     10     0      18   Walt Smith	
Unsafe at Any Speed  1:25:50 1:34:12 1:54:47 4:54:49  6   5     6      0      17   Glenn Haselfeld, Bill Graves

* One point was deducted for each full minute over the 5-hour time limit.