July 18, 2008
 

Dear Wildwater Racers and Friends:

The USA Wildwater National Championships are 2 weeks away. Actually, the week long celebration starts a week from this Sunday.

Zoar and the USA Wildwater Committee (Seth Eisner) have worked really hard to come up with a WEEK long National celebration and Wildwater event. The week starts off on Sunday, July 27 wih the Nationals Warm-Up Event. Then on Wednesday/Thursday, July 30/31 we have the First Inaugural Time Bomb Championship Event. Anyone can win this one - you don't need to be fast, just a good guess-timater of how fast (or slow) you will be. Friday, August 1 is pre-race registration and informal wildwater practice runs. We wrap up the week with the U.S. Nationals on Saturday, August 2 (sprints) and Sunday, August 3 (classic). There is more information on the week in the first article in this E-zine.

Our sport is starved for boats right now. If you have an old boat that you would like to sell, get it to the Nationals. If you are in the market for a new wildwater boat, check out the article by Chris Hipgrave about Prijon wildwater boats.

We also have some news about the 2008 U.S. Junior Wildwater Team. I hope that one of the members of the Junior Team will send me an article for our website and the next E-zine so we can get the racers perspective of the events.

Peter Lutter and Tierney O'Sullivan competed in the 2008 European Wildwater Championships in Valtellina, Italy on July 4-6. More about the race can be found at http://www.valtellinariver.it/en/european2008. The results for the Juniors are in the "Forerunner" links.

Then it was on to the Titlis-Rivey-Race (the "unoffical" International Junior Pre-Worlds) in Buochs, Switzerland. Peter Lutter, Tierney O'Sullivan, Mason Lacy and Spencer Lacy competed there. The link for that event is race.kanu-nidwalden.ch/indexen.php?action=home. Click on "Table" to find the results. (I could not figure out the groupings for the racers in the results.)

It's never too early to plan for life after the Nationals. Our final article is is about the 40th Annual Southeastern U.S. Slalom and Wildwater Championships. As in past years, there is the chance to earn some extra money at this event if you can break the course record for wildwater in several classes. See the last article for more about the race and what you have to do to beat one of records.

Best of luck to all who are competing at the Nationals! And have FUN!!

Chuck Brabec
Editor & Webmaster, USAWildwater.com