By Wesley Echols
I really enjoyed myself today at the Great Stone Dam Classic, an 8.14 mile race in Lawrence, MA hosted by Shawn Burke, and Francisco. It was a perfect day New England day with 50 degree temps and virtually no wind, so today was about power, can I draft, and can I out sprint the paddlers in my group!
Mike Florio continues to dominate the local flat water taking 1st place with Matt Drayer placing 2nd and Joe Guglielmetti in 3rd, 4th Eli Gallaudet, and 5th Chris Chappell, 6th Gerry Madore. These are the unofficial results since the official will be posted until tomorrow. I believe the top 4 surfski paddlers were not in a pack so each had no benefit of drafting. Chris and Gerry were together most of the race taking turns pulling until the final sprint where Chris was able to pull ahead. Their was a group of 3 in front of my group that were 3 minutes ahead or more and I think Jaromir Slama out distanced his group to come ahead.
My group was made up of Dave Wiltey and Glenn Drabik with me pulling virtually the whole race. Dave and I tried to trade off but he could not hold the pace when he was pulling. Glenn was alway a half to one boat length behind unable to take any turns. I tried several times in the first few mile to drop Dave but could not. So I knew it was going to come down to a sprint in the end. I was planning on my sprint with about a half mile to go but then Dave said if we don’t go now, Glenn is going to over take us, so with 1 mile to go Race ON! We dropped Glenn, then Dave dropped me, then Glenn in a hard effort almost nipped me at the end, but if managed to hold him off by a second! It was great racing in our pack made up of guys in our late 60’s and early 70’s and all in Stellar Kayaks, me in my Eagle and them in Falcons. These guys can move there Falcons, maybe I should have brought mine! I had a great race holding an average 151 Heart Rate, climbing to 159 in the sprint and averaging 6.4 mph while everyone ahead of me were in the 6.6 to 7 mph range. It was a fast course to day I thought compared to other years with no wind and current seemed to about the same up or down river which was great.
Chris got to try out his new NK Storm, and Gerry his Stellar Kestrel, and Joe in his Vega. Thanks again to Shawn and Francisco and all the volunteers and the group of high school students in uniform as part of a cadet training program. They were all a joy to be around, professional, courteous, helpful, and having fun!
