Decision on CP 8 (Full Results Below)

First as RD’s let me say we are sorry this CP caused so much trouble, but hey it wouldn’t be an adventure race without a little controversy. As you all know we do this on a volunteer basis and certainly don’t hold ourselves out to be anything but just that, however we do our best to make things as fair as we know how.

There seemed to be 3 complaints about the CP. We will address each as we see them. We know some of you are not going to be happy with our decision, but we considered all the factors before making it.

Complaint 1. Cp wasn’t visible from the river………...No it wasn’t dangling from a limb and easily seen from the entire river, but from the right side of the river in could be seen as well as from the top of the bank. The passport directions clearly stated that the locations given are not the EXACT location, just a general reference to get you fairly close. The directions did just that for over 95% of the teams. Scott stood there and watched most teams standing within 10 feet of the CP. The primary reason most teams didn’t see the CP from the river was because if they chose to portage and put in at this location , which most did, these teams were too busy trying to keep from flipping over in the current to look for the CP . Once their boats were straightened out, they were past it.

Complaint 2. The I-16/I-75 interchange didn’t necessarily mean the bridge itself……… Both Map 1, 2 show the word “ interchange” to describe the intersection, couple this with the grid given of C-2 and there is only one area it could have been in. “Just north” is probably too ambiguous in hindsight , but again 95% of the teams got near the CP. We meant to provide the UTM for this CP like we did for CP 1-6 but forgot to add it, lesson learned.

Complaint 3 River Right really means the left side of the river when paddling upstream……….We truly meant for the description to designate the CP was on the right side of the river going north, so when we first heard this we actually laughed. But since the teams that made the complaint, Checkpoint Zero/GoLite and Team Sport Factory, probably have a little more experience than us we reserved judgment until we did a little investigating. The first place we looked confirmed that” River Right is the right side of the river when facing downstream” which in this case would be the left side of the river. However, we found another definition that supported our definition from the Canoeing / Kayaking Glossary “ River Right is similar to “stage right” the right side of the river as seen from the paddler’s point of view”. We continued our search and emailed several professional’s in this field; in the end the overwhelming response was that River Right is in fact the left side of the river going upstream….go figure!

Even though 18 teams found the checkpoint and most of the teams were within 10 feet of it, we felt like the two teams that made the formal complaint that they thought the CP was on the left side of the river they should be given credit for the CP.

Decision: Checkpoint Zero and team WTF will both be considered 1st place finishers and both will receive $1,000 each Team Sport factory will be second and Crunchy Spiders will be third. The decision is final! Thanks for all your support and sorry to those who are not happy with the decision. Medals and prize money have been mailed.

Scott and Chad