ridecamp@endurance.net: PanAm - wrap up.

PanAm - wrap up.

Steph Teeter (step@fsr.com)
Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:01:47 -0700

Hi group,

Congratulations to all!

Especially Shirley and K.J. Destination who have come so close so many
times in the past and have worked hard for many years to achieve this victory.
They are a great team!

And congratulatinos to Christine Jansen who won BC on her *mare!* , Tais.

We have some great photos of riders crossing the finish line - will get
these scanned and on the web page asap.

Team standings are:
1st Canada West (they beat USA East by about 20 minutes!)
2nd USA East
3rd USA Central

Lots of Canadians were on the net as the ride was going on - cheering
for their riders - plenty of spirit there!

The Brazilian team also finished - they were whooping and
hollering as the last rider finished (1:10AM)!

There were some heartbreakers as well - Darla Westlake and MC RamsZ
looked great as they left VC5 (she and Sharon Westlake had a 10 minute
lead at that point). Darla radioed in between VC 5 and VC 6 that RamsZ
had punctured his foot at the coronary band on a stick and couldn't put weight on
the leg. She said he was bleeding quite a bit. Her voice was cracking - the
concern for her horse was so obvious. It was awfully sad.

A few horses had to be treated for colic and metabolic distress
The vets did a phenomenal job, one horse was in pretty bad
shape for several hours, but they pulled her through.

This was a very pretty fast course - especially the first 15 miles - the footing
was good and there weren't that many trail obstacles (rocks,etc) that
normally slow the horses down. It's pretty interesting that the front
running horses almost all looked great. Some of the slower horses
were the ones that had the problems.

It was a pretty exciting day...

We had a great time covering the event. Denise and Sue Summers spent
the day at the base camp. Sue worked up an 8x4 reader board, and
recorded all of the info coming in from the radio operators at the various
vet checks. She also ended up being the main information relay between
the riders, vets, horse ambulance, VC managers and the main event
organizers. She had originally volunteered to help me with internet
coverage but ended up playing a crucial role in the entire event. She
was there until the last rider came in. Way to go Sue!

Denise also spent time as central relay - plus transferred all of the
status info to the computer and then to the internet. She worked
at high speed all day and well into the night. 53 horses - 7 Vet
Checks - that's a lot of data. Thanks Denise!

Michelle ran around all day taking pictures - we should have some pretty
good ones to post once we get them scanned. They'll be available
on the results page. She got some good ones!

I drove some volunteers out to VC 1 at 4:30 AM, had to beat the crew
traffic to get them there before the first riders arrived. Came back to
base camp at 6:30 and spent the morning getting things set up -
helped Sue put the reader board together, got the database set up
for Denise, did a few test posts.

I spent most of the day at VC 4. Endurance Net helped sponsor the
event, and VC 4 was 'our' vet check. I worked as pulse/timer marking
down times that horses presented for pulse - so got to help out
as well as see the riders come through. It was pretty relaxed since
most of the riders had already spread out (54 mile check) - no big
rushes, no problems, no crisis. (all the crashes started occurring
at VC 6 - 85 miles). Got back to base camp at 4:30 and spent
the rest of the day helping Denise and Sue, updating
the database, etc. I processed the finish times as they came in and
had all of the results done by 2AM.

Nancy Cox was parked at the finish line, entering results on her
spreadsheet as riders came in - we compared notes in the
morning, had a few minor corrections to make - and a final finish
sheet was ready by 9 AM.

So many people helped make this ride happen - Heidi Smith and
Mike Foss were the main organizers - plus hundreds of others -
Sarah Miller and Jo Calver were everywhere all of the time.

We had a great time and the 'net coverage went pretty smoothly.
Now... time to start preparing for next year's World Endurance
Championship!

Steph Teeter
http://www.endurance.net
http://www.horse-shop.com

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