We are entering our second of two sequential bye weekend and we are all excited to race on March 7th. And even more excited for our end of year banquet on the same day!
Even though the GDHL has been quiet, there was an incredible race on Big John last weekend as Craigleith won another Interclub Title. James Mathers has been invited to contribute a full write which you can find below.
Details about our banquet:
As always, our end of year banquet will be a blast! Get your tickets for the event ASAP! Details are:
Date: March 7th @ 7:00 p.m.
Cost: $35+hst /per person - $25+hst/ per intermediate member
Coaches & Coyotes are welcome!
Ticket purchase deadline: February 29th
Included in the ticket price is ample wine, (though you may choose to bring your own and pay $10 corkage), delicious food, free drinks from our Craft Alcohol sponsors, and a beautiful Craigleith Masters Racing technical T Shirt.
Craigleith Interclub: The Dynasty
"Threepeat" is clever, but what is the equivalent for nine in a row? Whatever the answer, next year Craigleith's Interclub masters racing team will be seeking to complete a Decade of Domination to build on Saturday's unprecedented ninth consecutive victory in the Interclub finals.
Results can be found here. It was a comprehensive success, as Craigleith won all but one of the age groups in which the team had a starter and, in the end, finished 36 points ahead of Alpine and 53 points clear of the Peaks. Highlights included age group wins from Anne Mathers, Leslie Sims, Allan LaChance, Jeff Sutherland (highest point scorer of the day), Kate Veer, Trent Winstone, Greg Cavers, Mackenzie Irwin (fasted woman on both runs), Scott McLorie, Taylor Simms-Brown and Joel Charron (fastest overall on both runs), plus big point scores from Glenn Blaylock, Chris Fregren, Richard Usher-Jones and Jerry Patten.
If you're interested in looking back to the beginning of the streak, the report of the 2012 finals with lyrics composed in honour of the occasion can be found here. (We won only eight of eleven age groups back then.) But if you're focused on how you can join this elite group going forward, consider this:
You don't have to be "super-elite" to be an important contributor. For example, first-year Interclubber Rob Bruce finished sixth in his age group, but because there were 20 in his group, he scored 26 points. That was as many or more than eight of the team members who won their age groups! And, his presence resulted in each of the three Craigleith racers who finished ahead of him getting one additional point. It's really a strategic game.
Sometimes we're short on racers. Had one more person come to the early season race at Alpine, we would likely have won that race. And while our usual female racers are all category winners, we don't have as much depth as we would like.
We expect that the finals will be at the Peaks next year and that Craigleith will host a regular season race instead. That will make it easy for 24 people to get one race, but we'll only have space in the finals for one person who hasn't started two races. So plan your off-escarpment weekends for March and April to be sure your schedule doesn't conflict with Interclub :). We'll do our best to avoid conflicts with GDHL races!
Beer and Druxys sandwiches follow every Interclub race - a good time is had by all. But a certain level of decorum is expected. J-F Courville was part of the 2012 winning team, but it's not clear he has raced Interclub since this unfortunate costume choice a couple of years later!
- James Mathers