Wisconsin Adventure Racing Society(WARS)

In 2005, the race began in the southwest corner of Devil's Lake State Park. We walked 2 miles to the start, which had an awesome view of Devil's Lake from the south bluff. Teams then completed a demanding orienteering section after which they need to bushwack for 2 miles back to the bike transition area.

Teams had a option of staying out on course as long or as short as they wanted. Coming off early gave them more time for the biking section. The event was a score event. Team Virabhadrasana came in one hour early and got started on the long bike section. About 45 minutes later Team Freespeed came in after having found all of the orienteering markers. Just 17 minutes behind was the Soupbone Express, the 2003 Devil's Challenge winners. Last year's winners, the Newlyweds, also cleaned the course and were about 30 minutes back.

Team Freespeed took a small lead(2 pts) into the canoe time trial and hung on for a 1 point victory over Soupbone Express. The canoe time trial was started in 4 waves of boat classes with the igniting of fireworks. The line of lit canoes drew shouts from others camping on the river, and the race ended in the middle of the river where the race director stood with the final results board. The post race meal was served on a sandbar where a few hardy races spent the night. Winning time: 7:43

In 2004, I decided to start the race from a sandbar at 4am. We all camped out on the island and I surprised everyone with the wake up call. It was really cool canoeing in the dark, but what happened in the morning was unexpected....

In the morning, with the sun coming up a fog engulfed the entire river. With the river being so wide, it was very difficult to tell which way the river was flowing. Imagine paddling and seeing another team go by IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION! A number of teams ended up paddling upstream and had to depend on compass bearings or the position of the sun to keep going downstream. At the second marker when the first team arrived they asked how far behind they were. Since you couldn't see more that a few yards ahead, you didn't know where anyone was. Teams ran into sandbars and had to portage often. Finally, the fog lifted and teams were able to bike the steep hills of the area.

But the early leaders faded later. Frank F. and Joe Elliot missed the last marker and had to canoe back to it. They then found out they had lost a nut for their wheel and couldn't continue. Team Albatross had trouble in the biking section and lost the lead. Finally, Team Newlyweds( Ryan and Karin Jennings) took the lead with Ya Mule! Women just behind. That is the way the race finished, too. Winning time: 7:36

In 2003, David Frei returned to try and take the title. He teamed up with Charlie Shahbazian, a fellow orienteer. Also in the race were Shep and Stacy, who had made great strides in adventure racing and were starting to compete with the leaders.

The start of the race was a series of loops, biking and orienteering. David and Charlie took a 10 minute lead and headed off the hill on bike for the canoe section. Little did they know that the night before they had locked up their canoe on private propery. The owner didn't approve of that and had confiscated their boat. Just imagine arriving in the lead and having someone not give you your boat! I hear it was a pretty colorful conversation. : )

In the end, they got their canoe, and Shep and Stac made a mistake on the biking section leading to an easy win for Charlie and David. Well, it still took a lot of work. The winds picked up again in the afternoon which made canoeing very slow. Winning time: 6:26

In 2002, we had our one and only race delay. The race was to start at 7am at the canoe landing. However, after we arrived we could see a very threatening thunderstorm approaching from downstream. We delayed the race in order to let the storm pass. The winds picked up and were strong enough to pick up one canoe and hurl it on top of a fence. Fortunately, there was no damage and the storm passed quickly.

This race featured the most lead changes ever. I lost track of how many, but every time I found the leaders it was someone different. At the start, the best paddlers showed their stuff, but then raced right by one of the markers. The top three teams fell to the back of the pack and had to do an extra mile of paddling upstream. OUCH!Chris Ransom and Juli Lynch showed their strength by making up most of their lost time on the rest of the canoe section and the biking section. Later they had 5 flat tires, but still managed to finish the race thanks to the kindness of fellow racers who gave up spare tires when they ran out.

A few different teams took the lead during the canoeing, but a solo racer, Shep, was in the lead at the canoe landing. His lead vanished after he left his passport at the landing and had to bike back a few miles to get it. Another OUCH! This was his first race.

That left a coed team in the lead, but they got passed on the biking section by another coed team. Eric Buckley and Yvonne Deyo had come up from Missouri for the event and were having a great race. They hit the orienteering portion with a few minutes lead. They walked this section to save energy for the final bike back to the start. They completed it flawlessly and would have been the easy winners except.....

In the meantime, the team of Mickey and David Frei, who had made a major mistake on the canoe section, had biked like mad men and had all but caught up. In addition, they had won the time trial on the hill and had picked up 10 bonus minutes(like the Tour de France). They finished the orienteering just a few minutes behind Yvonne and Eric. That didn't make them feel very good. They knew David and Mickey had probably won the time trial and could also outbike them to the finish. Then again, second place isn't bad....

That's when strategy and lady luck stepped in. Everyone was sick of biking up the hills of the driftless area. The thought of even one more hill made everyone sick to their stomachs. The obvious easy route was to head straight to the river for the flats of the river valley. But Eric talked Yvonne into going up one more hill to shorten their route. This meant just 2 miles of biking in the river valley instead of 6 miles, and cut off the total distance by a little. Little did they know that the winds had picked up and were blowing in excess of 25 miles an hour. The last place anyone wanted to be was in the river valley for 6 miles of headwinds. They were the only team that did this route. They finished first, but had to wait to see if their lead would hold up. Remember, David and Mickey had a 10 minute bonus. They ended up finishing 11.5 minutes after Eric and Yvonne for a 1.5 minute loss after over 6.5 hours of racing! Winning time: 6:28

In 2001, we didn't know what to expect. It was the first race and nobody knew who we were. In the end we had arguably our most exciting race ever.

As I said, we didn't know what to expect and we didn't know many of the racers. It turned out that Rob Harsh and Danny Sullivan had entered to get a little sprint workout. They had just finished competing in the Pathfinder 2001, a race they finished last in. Well, only two teams finished and they were 2nd is another way of looking at it. : )

Another team we didn't know was David and Josie Nelson. This husband and wife team really put on a great show, too.

When the race began, it was clear who the best paddlers were. Josie and David took a 100 meter lead with Danny and Rob struggling to stay near them. It was close the whole way down the river, but Josie and David hung on landing first, but getting passed by the more experienced Celebrex team in transition. I spotted them on the biking section and once again they were 100 meters apart. Only now it was Danny and Rob in the lead with Josie and David struggling to stay with them. In the end, Danny and Rob proved stronger on the single track section and pulled into a 5 minute lead.

The last main section was two loops of orienteering. It didn't take long to find out who the better team was here. After the first short loop, David and Josie had pulled even, coming up the trail side by side with Team Celebrex. After the second loop, they had pulled ahead and lead by about 3 minutes. The final task was solving a puzzle and David and Josie were just a minute ahead at that point. They had to find a marker on a tower at the top of the hill. But there were two towers. They went up the first tower only to find the marker wasn't there. By then Danny and Rob had caught up and saw they hadn't found the marker. They headed west and got to the marker a minute or two ahead of David and Josie. The final marker was on top of a tower overlooking miles and miles of western Wisconsin.

But don't feel too bad for Josie and David. After the race, we found they had missed a marker on the single track section and were penalized 15 minutes. But since this time, we have never seen such a neck and neck race for the whole race. The winning time was just under 6 hours. Winning time: 5:46:30