On The Pegs December 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 12 | Page 73

On The Pegs
VOL. 4 ISSUE 12 - DECEMBER 2019
73
Day Three Calamity
On Day Three, the riders were greeted by high winds, rain and slippery tests.
Most of the top 50 riders were also misdirected by arrows that had been ma-
liciously taken down or changed and had to wait for marshalls to guide them
around the course. In addition, due to the difficulty of the slippery course,
huge bottle necks forced the organizers to cancel the second lap for everyone
except for the Trophy riders.
“They had some really tough transfer sections that day,” said Tzylor Robert. “I
think the club riders just really struggled in that. I know there were some huge
bottle-necks. Not only were the transfers tough, but they were very one-lined.
So I think some of the club riders got stuck.”
“There were somes arrows switched,” added Kallonen. “Arrows meant to turn.
Someone had tampered them and took them off and made them go a differ-
ent direction, and the top riders got lost. So it was our chase rider who found
the riders just sitting on the road and didn’t know where to go because arrows
just stopped. We got a hold of the Race Direction and got the guy there to
direct them directly to the time check on the road because they were so lost.
They figured it out the next day. That was actually day three when that hap-
pened. Day four they got more police and more marshals to enforce that no
one tampers the arrows. Day four was the same course, so the riders already
knew where to go anyway if it were to tampered. So that was one issue where
they had to add fifteen minutes to the time cards for the trophies. But when
you add fifteen minutes to the trophy guys, you got to add it to the women,
because the women starts five minutes after the trophy guys, otherwise they
would be ahead of some trophy guys. So it trickles all the way down. Same
then with the club. The maximum you can add time without needing to add to
every class is five minutes, because there is a five-minute gap between the tro-
phy and women, and then there’s a five-minute gap between the women and
the club. But if you add fifteen minutes, you just have to add it to everyone.
So, it got to the point where that one day they added so much time that they
actually had to cancel the second lap of the cup riders, because they added
thirty-five or forty minutes to the trophy riders, but that would mean that the
last club riders wouldn’t have sunlight. So, they just canceled the second lap
and only the trophy riders did the second lap.” n