The second event of the Grand Prix was the Boater-cross, though to spice it up some more they added a HUGE volume rapid. The rapid consisted of huge waves and holes where the line was pretty much straight down the middle, if you were lucky.

The main crux move was the last set of giant waves/curlers/holes. This was called the ‘Gauntlet’, and this could take you from 1^st to last in a hurry.

Now if that doesn’t sound fun enough yet, to start the whole thing off was a first heat of 21 people mass start! It was by far the craziest most epic race I have ever been a part of.

There were paddles and boats flying everywhere, people were upside down, backwards, all in a giant mess racing down this high volume rapid.

After the mass start of 21 the bottom 5 people were cut, leaving the top 16 paddlers for four heats of 4. My heat was heat three with Rush Sturges, Tyler Fox, and Ben Marr, a stacked heat. It was a very interesting Semi-Finals run to say the least. Off the start Rush and I got in front, though it was long till craziness started. I got thrown into and eddy and watched as Tyler and Ben passed me, I then peeled out into a nice pour-over hole, went deep popped up backwards. Got back on track, and sprinted to find Rush surfing a giant hole. Just as a passed on the left Rush got out of the hole and paddled into Tyler for a photo finish of the three of us.

The finals ended up being one heat of 8, with Rush, Anton, Bryan, Chris, Aniol, Casper, Keegan and myself. It was total chaos but I was lucky enough to find a clean line though to the finish. The final results were:

1^st Nick Troutman

2^nd Bryan Kirk

3^rd Anton Immler

Now off to La Tuque for the ‘Time Trial’ race.

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