Results in table form – http://ipar09.wordpress.com/results/
Wow! The 2009 Impossible Panther certainly brought some “adventure” to adventure racing! I need to send a big thank you out to all of the teams who came out to race this 3rd annual event!
The 24 hour teams were guinea pigs for the first Bushwhack Adventures 24 hour course. A threatening rainy forecast during the week prior had us all worried, but that didn’t keep anyone away. Friday’s weather broke clear about mid-day and the teams enjoyed a water-free sky as they started the race Friday evening. A local drum circle provided some acoustic excitement to the final minutes of race preparation.
During the surprise prologue O-course, Team CORE took an early lead ahead of Checkpoint Zero/Inov8, but just by one minute. CP0/Inov8 quickly took the lead from there and kept the race volunteers hopping to get in place in time. CP0/Inov8 kept the lead for the rest of the race and cleared the course for all practical purposes. CP 35 was literally underwater in a temporary Class III rapid that could only be approached from below, so we’ll consider it “impossible”. CP0/Inov8 was the only team to get all the “possible” CP’s, ending with a point total of 2320 out of 2400 points. They only left 37 minutes on the clock.
Team ROC Gear/4lph4 1337 kept close behind CP0/Inov8 and ended up with 2080 points. Several other coed teams turned in strong performances as well – Northern Lites, Mims the Word, Shake-A-Leg Miami, and Team GLR. The point spread across the 2nd through 6th place coed teams was only 400 points.
24 hour Open teams Action-Learning.com, Makit Bros, and M&M did well too, making key strategic decisions to play to their strengths on the rogaine style sections.
In the 12 hour race, teams were presented with a fairly obvious portage down around a dam to get to the O-course section. The water release from the dam made the return trip very difficult. A few teams learned of this and took an alternate approach involving much more foot travel but no portage.
Most of the 12 hour coed teams either fought their way to the O-course and skipped most of the biking points, or vice-versa. Team Mishmash managed to get most of the O-course and save time to attack a few of the high value bike points, putting themselves on top with 720 of a possible 1200 points. Beer and Whine also got most of the O-course and a few bike points to take second with 680 points. Team Diesel distinguished themselves on the bike points and skipped the O-course, which was enough to put them in third with 520 points.
The 12 hour Male teams were led by The Lost Boyz, who along with Team Osprey and Thirsty Turtles cleaned the O-course CP’s. The Lost Boyz grabbed more higher value bike points to put themselves on top with 890 points.
In the 6 hour course, coed team Never Late cleaned the 600 point course with a wide margin over Number Two’s 440 points. Number Two squeaked by Team ER to take second with an earlier finish time tie-breaker.
Male team Chocolate Covered Cream Filled Krispy Kreme Research Team also cleaned the 6 hour course, but only held a 20 point lead over second and third place teams Where’s My Sherpa? and Team Yombika, who also had to go to a finish time tie-breaker.
After the finish, teams cleaned up with a shower at the group camp and enjoyed a slideshow of over 300 pictures taken during the race by race volunteers while a live garage band played some favorite classic rock tunes. A catered BBQ dinner was served, followed by the awards ceremony and some much needed and well deserved rest!
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