Discussion: 2022 USARA Champs

"I want to give people an incredible tour of the most interesting and different terrain," says Horowitz who favors point-to-point courses with numerous route choices.

from here

YES!!!! Long overdue!

More info now posted at:
https://www.usara.com/usara-nationals.html

Catalina Island is the back-up plan?!

That would have been an amazing plan A

I agree, but it's too small to host a true 30-hour course, unfortunately

Also, there have been fires in the area, so we just may end up there. Any desire to race with our Development Squad? I think they're looking for a third.

It’s actually not much smaller than the area used for the looping 2021 Nationals plus there’s 2k ft of elevation change. You couldn’t do a big point-to-point course but with a lot of paddling and sufficient creativity/planning, it seems like it could work.

assuming the back country was available/permitted, that is :)

Looks like 28 hours for mistake free fast travel against a 30 hour cutoff.

And they're off!

https://live.enabledtracking.com/usara2022/

Here's the course preview.

USARA Nationals 2022 Course Preview from JS O'Connor on Vimeo.

Route choice on bike stage #2 right now: the leaders went west of the two small mountains on the marked route but most teams are going east.

More than halfway through the Stage 2 Bike, Team Tower is in the lead by about 15 mins. (I don't know them but someone here must!) Team Toyota Tundra (Mari Chandler et al) is in 2nd, about 5 mins ahead of Bend Racing. Bend is in a tight battle for 3rd with several other teams including Rootstock Racing's all-female team led by AP's own Abiperk!

The 2nd place female team, including AP's Work4Justice, is in the chase pack.

Toyota Tundra is first out on the Stage 3 paddle. Six minutes behind, there are 4 teams within 3 minutes of each other fighting for 2nd. Tower just left the TA in 2nd.

This course is very similar to the 24 hour race these guys did out of Bishop in 2015. The middle 50% is different. It’s cool terrain. One highlight was fording a knee-high river that was bathwater hot and steaming.

Looking ahead, it looks like more of speed-based, rather than nav-based course.

Suspect the leading teams will all spend extra time in TA4 b/c they have to plot the next 5 Pro points. Then, if I heard correctly we'll lose tracking on them as the go for those points b/c the signal in the canyon is poor. So, good time for all dot watchers to get some dinner.

Bend seems to have botched their nav., in particular contour interpretation, a bit on the stage 3 trek and lost time.

Uh Oh, 2nd place Bones is making an illegal move by traveling southbound on Old Sherwin Road/Lower Rock Creek Rd after CP 16. They needed to take the small dirt road that stays down by the creek. Meanwhile BendRacing is going for the bikewhack down the hill to cp16 instead of around. They were with Vert when they split.

Wow, Bend and Vert both got to cp 16 at the same time.

According to a FB video from the organizers, Bones was one of 3 teams to make the error of traveling on that illegal road. It’s a 4-hr penalty and Bones decided to retire when informed at the TA. Nature State and Recalculating were the two other teams mentioned.

A lot of teams are bailing on the gorge trek early. It must be really slow and/or unpleasant in there.

Is Toyota Tundra the only team that hasn’t skipped stuff?

Vert and Bend have also not skipped anything. They are close together and several hours behind TTT.

A little bobble by Vert at cp22 letting bend pull ahead a bit. They have a good shot at 2nd now if they can keep their lead.

@Bash - Tower is a very local team (Fresno, Bishop, and Mammoth). They have done some expedition races around the country. They had an exceptional race this weekend. Very exciting for them.

Thanks for the info!

Congrats to Toyota Tundra, USARA champions! Bend took 2nd followed by VERT and Tower. Also a big shout out to Rootstock’s female team who took 6th overall!

Looks like all-male Gear Junkie came in ahead of Tower for 4th overall, being the last course-clearing team.

Team Psyched, a dad, his 16-year old daughter and 15-year old son grab 6th coed and 8th overall. Impressive

Oops, right, I switched Tower and Gear Junkie. I saw a Facebook post with Rootstock in 5th place but they may have missed Gear Junkie too. Easy to do, given the way the leaderboard was set up.

Thanks for the shoutout, Bash! We did end up in fifth. Brent asked about GJ, too - my understanding is that they skipped the same three in the canyon that we did. I guess the tracker page showed something different at some point. It was a beautiful course and All Out has a really wonderful crew of staff and volunteers.

Yahoo, congratulations, Abby!!!!! It was exciting to watch you ladies crush it.

It must be a geofencing issue, in which case Tower is in 4th after all. The tracker page still shows GJ with full points but the organizers will have their own leaderboard.

Awesome job abiperk, we were pulling for you, from back East!

GJ tracker clearly shows them clearing the canyon/course. Agreed, they’re easy to miss on the leaderboard. I only saw them when you click on the “Info” icon, click “E-punch results” and then click “All”

Update sent out to racers: scoring or tracking error, not caught before awards. Congrats to GJ on clearing the course and earning fifth overall!

Regardless, that was an outstanding performance by the Rootstock women. So excited for you!

Gear Junkie posted an article about the race here.
https://gearjunkie.com/adventure/2022-usara-nation...