Salida – There was talk of “giving each other some room” in last week’s four-at-a-time Pine Creek Boater-X race down the Arkansas River’s stompiest stretch of Class V whitewater.
Tanya Faux said to forget that.
“I’m getting out in front early,” said the Australian paddle queen, whose flurry of early strokes into the roiling froth gave her the lead and kept her clear of the bumper-boating action between the three opponents chasing her.
One of them, Durango’s Eleanor Perry, spent a dozen-plus harrowing seconds in the ugly maw of the vicious Pine Creek hole, with brief glimpses of her pink drytop and baby blue helmet the only indication she was in there fighting the beast.
The fellas saw a few of their own pummeled by the carnivorous hole, including a pair of paddlers throwing tandem, rodeo-styled, thoroughly uncontrolled moves in the hole. Washington, D.C., pro Jason Beakes, who won the daunting Oh-Be-Joyful race two weeks ago outside Crested Butte, again showed his incredible focus in the face of terrifying whitewater to capture the men’s Boater-X title and its seemingly insufficient $300 prize.
Getting out front early was not Gary Lacy’s plan. But then, the only monster to battle on the 26-mile downriver race – the 58-year-old hallmark competition of FIBArk, the four-day river rave that defines Salida every June – was fatigue.
Lacy, the state’s leading whitewater playpark architect from Boulder, raced his 32nd consecutive downriver race, making him FIBArk’s official Old Man of the River. The 50-year-old paddling veteran, who watched his dad race in 1949, 1951 and 1952, has maintained the same plan every year of FIBArk, short for First in Boating on the Arkansas.
“Start out slow and then fade,” Lacy said. “Live to paddle another day.”
FIBArk’s classic downriver race is a grueling push through moderate whitewater at near sprinting speeds. Durango’s Andy Corra, 45, won the storied race, which began with a barroom bet between two paddlers in 1949 and has remained the longest whitewater downriver race in the country. It was tight for Corra, whose pal Mike Freeburn of Durango took second place a mere minute behind Corra’s speedy 2-hour, 12-minute finish.
“A 26-mile race sounds like a bad idea, and it really is,” said Scott Shipley, a three-time Olympic paddler from Boulder who finished third in last year’s downriver race but did not race this year because, he said with a contented grin on race day, he had work obligations.
Front Range teenage slalom kings Nick “Fuzzy” Chanin and Tad Morin spent the entire 26 miles on their knees, only two days after winning the national junior title for C-2 slalom, the two- man paddle division they have dominated this year.
The two-man approach to the downriver race meant one could paddle while the other refuels.
“We’re going to stop and munch for sure,” Chanin said. “We’re bringing lots of snacks and water.”
A new twist on FIBArk this year was the nighttime freestyle kayak contest. This year’s spin-and-flip shootout in Salida’s famous foaming feature ranked as the U.S. National Freestyle championship.
Vagabond paddle pro Stephen Wright, 28, who mostly lives in his truck by the rivers, dominated the finals with the huge aerial flips that are spearheading the rapid progression in freestyle kayaking. Just a decade ago, when the contest first appeared in Salida, the winners were paddlers who simply held on while the foaming wave fought them for control of their crafts. Today, the contest showcases gymnastic grace and instinctual control in grueling one-minute rides.
Wright, who paddles with the top- ranked Jackson Kayak team, was one of the few freestyle competitors throwing acrobatic combination moves like a back flip into a McNasty and the swirling Phonics Monkey.
“Those moves were created in big water,” said Wright, noting that many paddlers assumed those deep-water moves were not possible in shallow, smaller features like Salida’s hole. “It’s great to bring some of the big moves to Colorado.”
Three-time Olympian and U.S. freestyle kayak team member Bryan Kirk took second, and paddle veteran Jimmy Blakeney claimed third. Among the women, West Virginia paddle champion Tanya Shuman claimed the national freestyle title, followed by Faux, who finished second in the FIBArk hill climb and second in the slalom championships. Carbondale’s Colorado Rocky Mountain School-groomed Hanna Farrar took third.
Jason Blevins can be reached
at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
