Thirty three paddlers braved warm windy conditions for the ninth race in the Brown’s Extreme Summer Series of 2008/09. Fast improving C2 pair, Ed Dodderidge and Andy Koolhoff won the race with the top five placings including three female paddlers – Elsa Gale, Ella Chivers and Sharon Campbell. Steve Price kept his place in both the top five line honours as well as the corrected placings.
Twenty paddlers crossed the finish line during in the space of a minute and 31 in the space of 2 minutes – about one every 4 seconds, despite a 13 minute handicap gap between the first paddlers off and the the last. Race organisers are hoping that with a few refinements, they’ll have the handicapping adjusted so precisely that all paddlers cross the finish line together by the time the final race is held in late March.
On corrected time, Kris Clausen finished first, followed by Andrew Buckley. In the Open Women’s Jen Brown was first followed by Alayne Bonney, although Jen had the advantage of a Multisport Boat over Alayne’s DRR boat. In the the Junior Women’s, Elsa Gale narrowly beat Ella Chivers. In the Men’s DRR category, Just Boocock, who has been getting consistently faster all season, was first home ahead of Ian Cooksey and James Jackson.
Although the weather looked bad leaving Hobart, the gale force northerly winds pretty much scooted over the top of Brown’s with only some occasional gusts swirling around at river level and the race was followed by a nice social barbecue.
Only two more races to go until the final. Carol Furmston is planning a special barbecue event with platters of yummy stuff and Mountain Creek have provided some sponsorship spot prizes. So make sure you make it to race the last two races for the season.
