Visit 2011 SurfskiRacing.com Race Series Page 

The L2L race ended the SurfskiRacing.com Race Series sponsored by Stellar for the second year in a row.  This year congratulations go to Joe Glickman who won the series by two points (55) over yours truly with 53.  Joe came in 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the five races he chose to paddle.  Only the local paddlers get points because the goal of the series was to spark competition among the local paddlers. This year was a great example of this working  where all three of us: Joe, Eric, and myself were within a couple of points of each other and it coming down to the wire in the last race! We take the best 5 of the 8 races.

  As we know in life, half the battle is just showing up.  Joe made 5 of the races this year while he only raced two times last year.  The prize money helped that.  Joe ended up winning $300.00 for the series winner and $100.00 for winning the Double Beaver Race.   Eric won two races, the Essex and the Nahant and won $200.00. Eric was only 2 points behind me with 51 points.  I was the only paddler in a single ski to do all the races with a total of 74 points. For the second time in a two years I came in second in this series.  Tim Dwyer, last year’s winner, did all the races in a single ski with the exception of the Blackburn he did in my double. 

A few paddlers moved up this year in the standings: Greg Lesher, Chris Chappell, and Francisco Urena.  What do these paddlers have in common? Limited time on skis.  This was Chris’s 3rd year, Greg’s second, and Francisco’s 1st.  Nevertheless, all three had excellent seasons and I fully expect all of them to have better seasons next year.   The other thing that was different about this year was that 4-6 paddlers chose to paddle doubles this year vice singles.  We also had some new surfskiers this year: Chris Sherwood, Brian Sharp, Kari Crowe, and Mary Beth Gangloff to name a few. 

I will have the same races in next years series plus the addition of the Achilles Race in September. Hopefully it will not conflict with another race.  My other consideration is bring back the Wickford Race which could be done the 3rd week in June.  There is huge gap between the Sakonnet River Race and the Blackburn.  This would give us another shorter distance race in the 7-9 mile range since most of our races are 2+ hours. I have always enjoyed this race that offers a moderate course, rounding a light house, passing an island, and finishing on the town beach in the quaint town of Wickford.

 I also hope that Stellar will continue to support the race series for next year.  My other hope is that we will have more conditions to paddle in next year. With the exception of the Double Beaver Race, all the races were flat.  While I don’t mind a flat water race every now and then, my own preference is not flat.  So maybe next year we can have a good mix of conditions for racing.  While there are a few ocean and flatwater races left,I am looking forward to off season training (erging) then the beginning of next race season!!!!