I hope you are having a pleasant winter and are ready for another great adventure racing year in 2008!
I was planning to hold an event this March in the Northern Kettle Moraine State Forest. I like to move the Boar Race around the state, instead of holding it in the same location every year. However, I have learned that another group is planning an event in that area this spring. So, I have decided not to host the Boar event in 2008.
Good Luck and Happy New Year!
Kevin
Andy and Kevin would like to welcome you to the Wisconsin Adventure Racing Society(WARS)'s 5th season.
To get more information on our races click on the links in the toolbar to the left.
Our motto is low cost, beautiful scenery, tough courses and NO SMOKE. If you've tried one of our races, you know what we're about. If you haven't, I hope you'll give us a chance to show you what we can do.
Andy and Kevin are both competitors and race directors. Andy is an avid canoeist and won a number of canoe races last year. Kevin's specialty is orienteering. Last year, he won the U.S. Championship in the M45 class. We combine our talents together to give you a fantastic series of races. We hope you will enjoy them.
Kevin and Andy, WARS Co-founders
The 2007 Boar is now in the history books. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated this year. I hope you enjoyed the race and the beautiful scenery in the Black River State Forest. Following is a race recap.....
This year's race had 15 teams participating, and most had a lot of experience. I set up a course with 5 sections and some trail running. The sections were aerial navigation, line orienteering, GPS navigation, orienteering and land nav.
I started off by having teams solve a Sudoku puzzle to determine the starting order. Oops! The puzzle was apparently too hard and after a while I adjusted the requirements from solving 6 boxes to 5, 4, 3.... In the end, we got our start order set and started to send out the teams at one minute intervals.
The aerial and the line orienteering were combined and everyone seemed to complete both in a reasonable amount of time. The first teams were coming back after about 1.5 hours. One route on the aerial had people following a trail that they thought would bring them to the road near the 4th aerial marker. Instead it brought them up the highest mound in the park. And up there it deadended with an impossible drop off. Those teams had to go back down the trail and find another way around the hill.
The trail running also turned out to be an adventure as the trail was wet from melting snow and recent rainfall. That meant that the nice trail run became an ankle deep plod in some places, as the sandy soil sank with each step.
Next was the GPS section, which had many teams nervous. Many had little experience with GPS, and some that did have experience encountered some difficulties. Of note was one team that spent about 15 minutes trying to get their unit to find enough satellites for them to do the course. In the end they gave up, and borrowed one of mine. That glitch may have cost them the outright win.
Most teams didn't look for caches, probably because the first one was a football up in a tree that was easy to see IF you looked up. The others were donald duck in a hole in a dead tree, a small vase on the ground next to a bush and the last was a coffee mug in a hollow tree stump. Two teams found all 4 for a bonus point.
The orienteering section was tough, but most teams found a lot of the markers. Others ran out of time and had to turn back.
The top few teams finished with just enough time to find one of the land nav markers before returning before the 5 hour time limit. Only two teams got caught too far away to make it back in time and paid the steep 1 point per minute penalty.
Teams returned to the parking area throughout the race and everything went smoothly in the transition area.
As the race progressed the lead changed hands a number of times. The early leaders were Soupbone Express who were the first back from the aerial and line O section. But first out of the parking lot on the GPS section were Ya Mule! Women who briefly held the lead. But Load for Bear(Joe E. and Tom W.) came off the GPS section in first(I thought). But they had forgotten to get the final GPS marker, so technically, may have been a little behind still.
In the mix early were Brian P. and Michelle about a 1/4 hour behind heading into the orienteering leg. Mother Jugs were also in the lead or close to it at the start of the GPS section. So, there were 5 teams that I thought could win the race at that point. But Mother Jugs had trouble on one O marker and couldn't get back in time.
Then with time running low, Michelle and Brian came jogging down the trail. At that point there were 40 minutes to go and little chance of them being caught. But Soupbone express ran down the road just minutes behind them, as did Loaded for Bear. Unfortunately, for Loaded for Bear, they had missed that one marker on the GPS which left them one marker short of the two top teams in the end.
Congratulations to Brian and Michelle for being first overall, Soupbone Express for 2nd and first male team, and Ya Mule! Women for taking 3rd overall and 1st all female team just one point behind the overall winners.
The results are posted in the Boar link. Check it out and let me know if there are any errors that need to be fixed.
Thanks again for making this race a success!