At the Outlaw race Marty Schaub and many of the Down Here Retreat attendees presented some schmoe with a little honorarium for getting everything put together:
Thanks to Marty and Ron Olsen for going all the way to the 'hood and back to fetch some really spectacular squeezins.
Also, thanks again to Marty for handling the timing duties at the Outlaw. Hannah Karr is also getting the hang of running a timing table after running the GS race time trials on Saturday. She never missed a start and ran a smooth race all day.
Like I said on the sign up, the Retreat was all about sessioning, dialing in and getting ready to race in 2006. As we all know, though, you can't get two slalom skaters together with a stack of cones without some racing. We had racing all weekend that was as intense as anything we'd find on the circuit on a hot Saturday afternoon in July!
First up was the Saturday GS race on the "big hill." The coure was similar to the Dixie Cup GS course, but was stretched up high above the starting blocks. The first cone was right at the end of the by-pass tarmac off to the side of the course. It made for some fast stuff all day.
GS Results Hobby Park Down Here Retreat
Marty Schaub 17.30 (six wheeler)
Tom Thompson 18.1 (four wheeler)/ 17.45 (six wheeler) Tom was second overall.
Marion Karr 17.90 (next to last run of the day)
Aaron Morris 18.00
Mike Duquette 18.6
Adam Colton 19.7
The Saturday Night Friday Night Outlaw results were published earlier, but we'll repeat it here to keep everything together in one post:
Aaron Morris 13.715
Evan 15.006
WT 15.519
Karr 16.086
Dholt 17.697
Mike Duquette 18.707
Ron Olsen 19.035
BigE 21.826
Tom 22.662
Sunday saw the Saturday dual hybrid course extended with a tighter stinger at the end and stretched 440 feet from the ramps to the finish line. The Ladder-Bracket format worked well and saw everyone who participated get lots of runs down the course. First, though, was qualifiers to set the intial brackets:
Sunday Ladder Bracket Racing Tight/Hybrid Race
Qualifying:
Mike Duquette 19.510
Evan St. Clair 20.445 clean
Aaron Morris 21.150
Doc Tommy 22.466
Darren Holt 23.047
Dave Morris 23.233
Rookie Rudisill 23.352
Shannon St. Claire 23.489
Jayson Dexter (DEX) 23.858
Jay Mishoe 23.924
Mike Burns 24.989
A racer stayed in the top bracket until losing a round and the merry go round was off with repeated rounds. The racing got faster with each new round of matchups. The final fast times determined the finishing order:
Rider Fastest Time Ladder Bracket Wins
Aaron Morris 18.978 Clean 4
Evan St. Clair 19.448 3
Mike Duquette 19.503 3
Shannon St. Clair (SST) 20.507 3
Darren Holt (Dholt) 21.181 3
Doc Tommy 21.985 Clean 2
Jay Mishoe (Jaybird) 21.998 2
Rookie Rudisill 22.735 2
Mike Burns 22.801
Dave Morris 23.349
Jayson Dexter 24.278
Finally, after the brackets, there were some "call outs" where folks had a score to settle. We saw some more matchups that led to even faster racing:
Evan St Claire(19.360) vs. Aaron Morris (19.485)
WINNER>Evan S.t Claire (His fastest run of the day)
Shannon St. Clair (20.827) vs. Darren Holt (21.458)
WINNER>SST
Rookie Rudisill(21.711) vs. Jay Mishoe (22.358)
WINNER>Rookie Rudisill (His fastest run of the day)
Aaron Morris(18.429) vs. Mike Duquette (DQ)
WINNER> Aaron Morris (His fastest run of the day…motivated after losing to Evan and Mike giving him comp in the Ladder Bracket racing)
Shannon St. Claire(19.817) vs. Evan St. Claire(19.626)
WINNER>Evan St. Claire (SST layed down his fastest time of the day cutting his time by .69 seconds from his best time in the Ladder Bracket Racing.)
Also, a real reflection of what the Retreat was all about was Cody Wilson's performance all weekend. He's 13 years old and just started slaloming (honestly, I don't know if he ran cones before Saturday.) He's core DHB member DHolt's nephew and Cody never let up all weekend. Saturday he was getting squared with the start ramps and took a hard slam, but got up and kept on going. In Sunday's ladder bracket race, Cody got faster and cleaner all day. After his first run was a DQ, Cody kept at it and got a time of 38.757 seconds with many cones at .1 second penalty. He kept his cool, kept coming off the ramp and on his last run posted a 32.834 CLEAN RUN.
That, folks, is what it's all about.