Raquette Race

The Raquette River is in upstate NY half an hour away from the border of Canada. It is part of the Kind of New York Race series. I have been at the Raquette Race for the last 3 years in a row and the last 2 years I have raced.
I drove down the night before the race from the Ottawa River. After finding the town I pulled into the put in. Seeing the 30+ cars parked I knew this was the “camping area” After a night of watching Beaver race footage I woke up to the dam horn going off. I showed a group of 5 down the river that had never gone yet as my training lap.

The Raquette has a very shallow mankey style to it, never the less it is very steep and very fun. For example the first rapid is a ferry, to a boof, to a ferry, to a 45 foot slide. The race started right below the dam and continued though 5 rapids a bit more then a mile. The format was to start racers every minuet starting with green boats and retro boats. I was shown a sneak on the first rapid right before the race, I had never taken it before but I believed I could hit it and it looked a lot faster.

More nervous about the sneak I was taking then the race I started off. I hit both of my sneak line well, I lost most of my time in flat water hitting rocks. Other then that I had a good race lap. Celebrating at the bottom we finished out the run and relaxed at the top. After another lap down the river I headed back up the Ottawa. I finished 7th in the creek boat category and was quite happy with my time but I do plan to make it better next year!
Thanks to everyone who helped organizing the event as well as the whole King of New York series. Great Success!

For results go to:

http://whitewaterkingofnewyork.com/2012-results-overall.html

Galen Volckhausen