Husky Racing!
After a dissapointing evening at dad's grandparents going upstairs from TBL and then downstairs to Revenge of the Sith and then upstairs again and then downstairs and to my dad's where there is no PC and going to sleep. However I knew that the next day (Sunday) I would be going to see another husky race.
We left at about 10:15 which to me wasn't a great start, since it started at 10:00. We drove over to Ascot and had the first problem to overcome. All I had was the address of the event from Dave Hemmins, the event's co-organiser. So we drove around and looked for the road it was on, Swindley Road. My dad spotted it and we turned, but soon the road ended at a crossroad and became another road. So we turned around and headed bac down the road. We couldn't see the turn-in we were after, called Buttersteep Rise, and we came back to the road we had turned off from originally, then realised that the road we had been on became Swindley Road, so we kept driving down the road we had been driving on orignally if we hadn't turned off in the first place!
Then we drove quite slowly, but not quite slow enough for me to read the signs of the lodges, paths and lanes that trailed off from the road. I spotted Buttersteep Rise and told me dad to turn, but we were going too fast and couldn't turn in time so we went passed it and had to turn around and try a second time. This time we succeeded and we drove down the trail about 1/2 a mile and then began to see the row of parked vans. We pulled up and parked alongside the vans.
The second I got out of the car, all I could hear was the dogs, barking and yowling. My sister was holding her ears for a brief minute and I was standing there with a huge grin on my face. We walked down passed some of the vans, and dogs that were inside them. After a minute, we reached the start line. The finish line was just around the corner. But the trail itself went out for 3 miles, and took most teams about 10/15 minutes to mush around.
The first mushers I recognised were the Mavericks, Tracy and her son Tom had been part of the documentary interviews, however I had only used part of Tracy's interview with the section on the commands. I said "Hello." And they greeted me back, Tracy's husband was on the trail and they were waiting for him. My sister and Dad were watching the start line, as another team got ganglined to the rig and then sprinted off. I then spotted Dave, and went over to thank him for the address that led us here. He is my local musher, he lives in Burnham and that is about a 10 minute drive away. I go through Burnham on the train when I go to college.
Another familiar face I spotted was Darren LeFevre, he had provided some great material on his lead Dog 'Thunder' and also talked about the 1925 serum run with me when we had last talked. "Hiya Mate, how's the project coming?" He asked me. He was racing at 13:53 and was just watching some of the dogs go from the startline. I introduced Darren to my dad and he had a chat with him about Dogsledding, since my dad didn't really know anything about it.
Then I saw Reg Osborn's van, and I went over to see him. Reg was one of the primary interviewee's in the documentary and we had chatted last time for almost 40 minutes. His 3 dogs are brothers and he was pleased to see me. He was getting ready for the 3-dog class, then later he would be going out in the 2-dog class. So I let him get ready and he said to drop back around later when he had finished racing. I went to the finish line and joined my dad and sister, my dad had started to photograph some of the teams coming through the start line. "It's could have been worse..." Dave told me, "We had expected rain today." Many of the musher's were coming through the finish line with mud splattered on their faces, most of it had been thrown up by the dogs when they had been running.
After about 40 minutes watching the teams between the start and finish line, I saw another familiar face. But this one wasn't from Dogsledding. It was the reporter from the local newspaper, the Slough & Windsor Observer. He had come to write a article about the Shantly Challenge Rally. He didn't know anything about the sport or anyone, so I went to introduce him to one of the musher's I knew.
And I have to continue tomorrow, since my time is going to shortly run out...damn the library's time limits!
We left at about 10:15 which to me wasn't a great start, since it started at 10:00. We drove over to Ascot and had the first problem to overcome. All I had was the address of the event from Dave Hemmins, the event's co-organiser. So we drove around and looked for the road it was on, Swindley Road. My dad spotted it and we turned, but soon the road ended at a crossroad and became another road. So we turned around and headed bac down the road. We couldn't see the turn-in we were after, called Buttersteep Rise, and we came back to the road we had turned off from originally, then realised that the road we had been on became Swindley Road, so we kept driving down the road we had been driving on orignally if we hadn't turned off in the first place!
Then we drove quite slowly, but not quite slow enough for me to read the signs of the lodges, paths and lanes that trailed off from the road. I spotted Buttersteep Rise and told me dad to turn, but we were going too fast and couldn't turn in time so we went passed it and had to turn around and try a second time. This time we succeeded and we drove down the trail about 1/2 a mile and then began to see the row of parked vans. We pulled up and parked alongside the vans.
The second I got out of the car, all I could hear was the dogs, barking and yowling. My sister was holding her ears for a brief minute and I was standing there with a huge grin on my face. We walked down passed some of the vans, and dogs that were inside them. After a minute, we reached the start line. The finish line was just around the corner. But the trail itself went out for 3 miles, and took most teams about 10/15 minutes to mush around.
The first mushers I recognised were the Mavericks, Tracy and her son Tom had been part of the documentary interviews, however I had only used part of Tracy's interview with the section on the commands. I said "Hello." And they greeted me back, Tracy's husband was on the trail and they were waiting for him. My sister and Dad were watching the start line, as another team got ganglined to the rig and then sprinted off. I then spotted Dave, and went over to thank him for the address that led us here. He is my local musher, he lives in Burnham and that is about a 10 minute drive away. I go through Burnham on the train when I go to college.
Another familiar face I spotted was Darren LeFevre, he had provided some great material on his lead Dog 'Thunder' and also talked about the 1925 serum run with me when we had last talked. "Hiya Mate, how's the project coming?" He asked me. He was racing at 13:53 and was just watching some of the dogs go from the startline. I introduced Darren to my dad and he had a chat with him about Dogsledding, since my dad didn't really know anything about it.
Then I saw Reg Osborn's van, and I went over to see him. Reg was one of the primary interviewee's in the documentary and we had chatted last time for almost 40 minutes. His 3 dogs are brothers and he was pleased to see me. He was getting ready for the 3-dog class, then later he would be going out in the 2-dog class. So I let him get ready and he said to drop back around later when he had finished racing. I went to the finish line and joined my dad and sister, my dad had started to photograph some of the teams coming through the start line. "It's could have been worse..." Dave told me, "We had expected rain today." Many of the musher's were coming through the finish line with mud splattered on their faces, most of it had been thrown up by the dogs when they had been running.
After about 40 minutes watching the teams between the start and finish line, I saw another familiar face. But this one wasn't from Dogsledding. It was the reporter from the local newspaper, the Slough & Windsor Observer. He had come to write a article about the Shantly Challenge Rally. He didn't know anything about the sport or anyone, so I went to introduce him to one of the musher's I knew.
And I have to continue tomorrow, since my time is going to shortly run out...damn the library's time limits!