Gore Canyon – There is no such thing as a professional whitewater rafting team in the United States. But most spectators would be fooled by Colorado’s own “Behind the 8 Ball” raft race team.
Behind the 8 Ball won its fourth consecutive national championship title at the U.S. Whitewater Cup last weekend, using piston-like paddling technique to dominate a field of six other amateur squads in sprint, slalom and downriver race competition on the Colorado River. By winning the annual event, the six-man team retains its rightful spot on top of the rafting ranks and will represent the U.S. in International Rafting Federation (IRF) competition around the world, including the 2005 IRF World Championships in Ecuador in October.
There the Vail-based team will face the true pros, rafting teams from up to 30 nations including crews of Olympic-caliber paddlers from Russia and the Czech Republic who are paid to race down rivers. Here, the biggest challenge is the river itself.
After a day of technical contests on the Shoshone section of the Colorado River near Glenwood Springs, the road to the world championships flowed through Gore Canyon, the steepest and most technically challenging stretch of the river from headwaters to mouth. The downriver race route spills over “Fisherman’s Nightmare,” courses around the jagged boulders of “Gore Rapid,” smashes its way over “Tunnel Falls,” flushes through the “Toilet Bowl” and careens past “Kirschbaum’s” in a 5-mile push that demands endurance and precision.
“Gore Canyon is one of the best Class 5 runs around. It really does determine a true national champion that can represent the United States at a world championship level,” said race organizer Mark Joffe of Lakewood-based Rapid Pulse production company. “One of the issues we have with holding the national championships here is that many teams, particularly women, won’t compete because of the level of paddling you need to be at.”
That was certainly true of the 2005 Whitewater Cup, where the Timberline Tours women’s team – the only women’s team to enter – repeated as national champions with a fourth-place finish overall.
“We know we are going to have tough competition in Ecuador, so competing against the men’s division here was really good for us,” leader Katherine “Bugs” Bugby said. “It made us push ourselves really hard to try to beat some men if we can, and we did.”
Joining Bugby in the boat were teammates Lisa Sackville, Cristin Zimmer, Dawn Vogeler, Lisa Reeder and Jody Swoboda. Their downriver race time of 26 minutes, 57.97 seconds was competitive, but a far cry from the winning time of 23:17.34 posted by Behind the 8 Ball’s Chris Reeder, Mike Reid, Todd Toledo, Ollie Dose, Chip Carney and Ben Bungartz.
“We did good today,” Reid said. “We were a little loose in places, maybe a little off, but we felt strong and it will be a good platform for us to build on. All we have now is six weeks of hard training before we go do it at worlds.”
A turnout of 15 raft teams, two two-man “shredders” and four “Creature Crafts” entered the traditional Gore Canyon Raft Race won by AVA Outfitters of Granite, but the lack of genuine competition in the national championship event creates an additional challenge for the 8 Ball team in its preparation for international competition. By contrast, the reigning world champions from the Czech Republic didn’t qualify to defend their title in Ecuador after losing to another Czech team.
“The river in Ecuador is much easier, but it’s hard to get the kind of competition we need to compete on the world level,” said Reid, whose team was fourth at the most recent world championship. “We hold our own because we are in the boat so much together.”
Jed Selby of Buena Vista had the fastest time through the canyon in a kayak, finishing in 22:23.94, five seconds ahead of defending champ Ken Hoeve of Gypsum. Mike Pagel of Fort Collins (22:57.58) won the longboat division. Buffy Bailey Burge of Asheville, N.C. (24:00.77) won the women’s division.
