Full race results can be seen here
Sat July 25, 2009 Friendsville, MD
Racers meeting outside Wilderness Voyageurs Shop, Friendsville
The 29th Annual Upper Yough Race (UYR) was a success with a beautiful day, 40 racers and the coolest race t-shirt ever. Congratulations goes out to all the competitors. The UYR is unique in the “extreme” race category because of the nature of the whitewater…it’s class IV, easy V, so it’s possible to race one of those funky wildwater boats (if you’re good), and Wavehoppers/Speeders and other old school long fiberglass boats. And I don’t think you see too many wildwater boats in other races of this type. It keeps things interesting (separates the men from the boys so they say) and some of the old boats in your in-laws garage will always have a big demand around here.
Wildwater veteran, Geoff Calhoun (in the only full on wildwater boat) won at just over 29 minutes. As usual, the field was dominated by local paddlers in long boats. Isaac Levinson, a promising slalom racer attending Garrett Community College (GCC) finished behind Geoff in a Wavehopper. And a familiar face on the Upper and recent GCC graduate, Matt Fithian in 3rd in a Pyrahna Speeder. The Dagger Green boat was the boat of choice with 1/4 of the racers paddling it. Indeed, the Green boat was a good choice, the long boat division was won by Ben Ledewitz in Green boat and 6th overall. Another familiar face, Jay Ditty crushed it in his C-1 coming in 7th overall. Friendsville local, Scott Stough won the K-1 short boat class. The women’s class was won by Sara Mullett, also in a Green boat. See the full results here.
There are a very limited number of race t-shirts left over for sale for $15 in sizes Large and X Large only. This isn’t your “typical” race shirt, it’s a cult phenomenon, the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt. Has “29th Annual Upper Yough Race” on sleeve. If you don’t know about this t-shirt already, it’s the #1 selling apparel item on Amazon.com. Go to Amazon and search for “3 wolf moon t-shirt” and read the reviews. Seriously, you are going to want to do this right now. And then come back, and buy one of the few we have left.
Finally, I want to thank several people for making this race a success. First, Jess Whittemore for handing the race over and basically still doing everything. Seriously, Jess thanks for all the years of thankless service putting on this race, securing the water release and for all of your help this year with not only the timing and results but helping us along the way with all the details. Thanks also to Chuck Stump and Tom Pittman for race day help. And to Jim Field for his heroic effort in getting beer to the finish line. Also big shout out to Nico Zegre for starting and Jon Harmon for rounding up the racers. Thanks to all the folks on the river, including the commercial raft guides for staying out of the racers way, helping with carnage and cheering on the racers. Thanks to WV and IR for putting on the race and for the prizes. And a very special thank you to Lou at Wilderness Voyageurs for registration and just being “the man”.
Next year’s race will be Sat July 24th, 2010. (sorry for any confusion- we got conflicting data but this is correct! Always the 4th Sat of the month) Put it on your calendar and train up!!
