Race results from St. Luc

You know how they say “a picture is worth a thousand words……”? well we don’t have the picture so you are going to get the thousand words!
Before I go into the details of the weekend race at St. Luc de Vincennes, just know that Randy DeKuiper gets “the award for the most creative effort in contributing to a blog posting”!!!!
I last left you all at the race site where we had finally gotten there after forgetting the sleds and mentioned the many sharp turns in the trail………First of all, I give myself a “bravery credit” but as I imagined the trail was difficult and thinking “no guts, no glory” got me no finish! I think I had made it around at least 7 (seemed like 20) curves, and thru the one I thought most difficult (a sharp S-curve) and was just thinking I was going to make it to the also difficult turn-around loop, and I can’t really even tell you what happened……one minute I was going the fasted I’ve ever gone down a trail and the next thing you know, I am walking on the trail watching my team run away even faster!!! No stopping, no collect $200, just going…… Every curve to that point I had slid around sideways and hit the outer bank and bobbled/almost lost my balance, so why I fell I do not know….it was a soft landing in very deep snow, just “poof”! So I try running for a ways cause I know I am not far (actually it was probably ½ mile0from the road crossing and there would be people there that would catch my team and I could finish the race – well they caught my team………and let some guy get on the sled and drive them back to the finish line. This I didn’t find out until I got back to the truck and Randy tells me – they hadn’t even radioed back the I was all right. So because I didn’t finish with the team and somebody else did, I was disqualifie (that’s French for disqualified in case you didn’t guess!) So that started the weekend off poorly!
Then Randy goes out nervous because of all the bad turns, only he has 18 dogs to whip him around the curves! The whole race Maria (the dog that had a pad missing from her foot, but had run well in training, and who is a leader but was running at point) never pulled, in fact the leaders and the other point dog ended up dragging (figuratively speaking) her around the trail for 13 miles. Randy had said all along he was using this race to decide who to run in Laconia NH next weekend so he was disappointed to come in at 16th, but thought he might have some dogs that would not do well, but didn’t expect Maria to be one of them.
An uneventful evening in the dog truck, chicken alfredo and green beans prepared by Chef Cris on her one-burner gourmet range!
Sunday racing is the “picture” you have been waiting to hear about! Only 16 dogs today- left smoothly from the chute- Randy was catching the guy that had left 4 minutes before him and thought they werent’ going fast (averaging 15 to 19 miles per hour) he was moving right along on a very bad trail (the rain the nite before and a multitude of other things contributed to a very punchy/soft trail with lots of holes in it) and he got to the turnaround loop and was trying to maneuver the sled so nobody got on the wrong side of the line, and fell (like a DeKuiper tradition???) Thankfully, there was a guy there that held grabbed the sled as Randy dragged by and Randy was able to get back on and moving.
Now comes the “good” part………………………………… 1.5 miles from the finish (actually quite near to where I had my little problem) Tahoe (a dog I may have mentioned before because she did the same thing at Daaquam) decided she didn’t want to run anymore and laid down, stopping the team. Now I want to believe what happens next is just one dog telling another the her work ethic stinks, but the other dog, Colleen, starts a fight with her and in breaking up the fight, loads Tahoe in the bag, the snow hooks get buried so deep in the soft trail that he can’t pull them out with only one hand and needs two, and wraps one arm around the driving bow and when he yanks the hook out the team jerks the sled and his arm comes off the sled and they’re off……….with Randy dragging again holding only the snow hook…….and dragging until all 3 layers of his clothing are down around his ankles…….bare skin on the icy crystally snow………dragging for who knows how far…….no one around (thankfully for modesty’s sake, but not for safety’s sake) and running really good and fast cause they were chasing a team that had passed him while he was stopped!! His snow pants are full of snow, he tries to apply pressure to the brake cause the snow hook isn’t catching, and finally they slow down enough for him to drag himself back up onto the sled, and pulls just his wind pants up (everything else is still down around his knees). Stops one more time cause another dog is looking tired and finally makes it back…………..tells me when we are taking dogs off the lines “I need a change of clothes” I say “you mean like a dry t-shirt, can it wait till we are done with the dogs?” he says “no, do I have to spell it out?” sooooooo I’m thinkin’ that it’s the old “should have gone to the bathroom before I left” story and I go in and get out the wipes, TP and new underwear- when he comes in and takes off his clothes, I see raw hide on both knees, abrasions on his thighs and you-know-where-else!!!! Of course doesn’t want me to put dressings on them so he just puts polar tec pants over and we finish with the dogs!
Randy ends up still in 16th, which is seeming like a minor miracle in view of the days events, and we go to the awards ceremony (Melanie got 3rd in the 6 dog and Claude had trouble too and even though normally he wins his race, he was 8th) and Randy starts telling his story and creates quite the guffaws heard around the room as it’s being translated into French!


Back home to our “sugar shack” with running water and heat! But first Randy stops to tell Melanie and Claude his story with lots of gasps of surprise from Melanie!
I search the truck looking for supplies to do major first aid dressings and actually came up with quite an array of onintments and stuff – Randy chooses the medicine we got for the dog’s feet and he’s all wrapped up from his knees to you know where!
Today (based on Randy’s pain level and the fact that most of the dogs don’t need to be trained today) is a slow “let the kids play around the house” day with dinner tonite with Bellerives!!
How many other blogs can provide this level of entertainment???!!!