L' Epiphanie Race Weekend

I left you on a rainy day on our way to L’ Epihanie…..and it rained……and it rained…..and it rained! The “little bit” we were supposed to get probably ended up to be about 2 inches and turned the streets into big puddles on top of ice in the village of L’ Epiphanie. We parked in one spot and had to move over 10 ft. cause we were sitting in 4 inches of water to drop the dogs in! Stopped raining about 9pm and they decided that with some modifications to the trail, the race would go on! Johnson’s were at the driver’s meeting (from MN, Neal and Carolyn and their 2 little girls)- we hadn’t seen them in a long time, and Keith Bryar and Jimmy Lyman were up from NH.
Up the next morning to a beautiful sunny day- warm enough for only a couple of layers- but the trail was like a million pieces of glass (it had gotten cold overnite and by whatever scientific process, the snow had become crystalline). I talked to someone who had gone out in the 4 dog and he said the trail was pretty good –Now I was feeling a little bit confident because the map they had drawn of the trail showed huge, sweeping curves out in a flat field with very little head-on passing. The part about the fields was correct; the curves were pretty much mostly right angles and the turnaround loop was one of those deals where I went around sideways!! However, no falling, no losing team!!! Came in 11th!!
Randy had a fair day- left with 16 and 4 of them were not performing for a variety of reasons (mostly that the 14 mile trail with the ice crystals made for “instant fissures” (cuts in the palm of the dogs foot) which caused them to not pull, and often pull back on the neck line. He ended up 12th, not what he would have preferred, of course.
Jokingly (well, ½ jokingly anyway), the nite before at the driver’s meeting I had asked Sebastian (a young guy that quite often travels with Serge Pomerlau and his handler, Herve Bellanger) when we could come to have dinner with them in the huge, beautiful motor home that Serge has – so Sebastian says Serge wants us to come to dinner and if we want to bring something it could be dessert. So after we feed and ask a local dog driver going to the store to pick up cake for us at the grocery store, we go over to the “Serge Motorhome” (you may remember seeing a picture of it when we were at Daaquam and he got stuck in the snow next to us). It is quite luxurious and Serge is a wonderful host and chef. Dinner was delicious and we were all too full for cake!
Sunday I am a lot more nervous (darn butterfly stomach) cause I know the trail is not a piece of cake and I really don’t want to make any mistakes and drop down in the standings, but I want to go as fast as I can without screwig things up! The trail was faster, as it had been cold overnite, but about the same consistency of crystalline snow – it didn’t seem to bother my “fearless leaders”, Spiff and Fratz and they all pulled hard and came in strong, and I went around the trail very conservatively, slowing down at the corners, etc. Imagine my surprise when Randy brought me the results that not only had I not dropped any places, I had moved up to 10th!!! I think this is probably the best I have done in a competitive race (and though some of the competition was not there, like Melanie drove an 8 dog team instead of 6) it was still highly competitive!
Randy had a not so good day…….he made a driver error and should have put boots on all 4 feet of Holly instead of 2 and she didn’t want to run from the start and he had to stop and put her in the dog bag out only 2 miles. Then a snap on the leader’s neck line came open and Sarah stopped and backed out of her harness so tight that he could hardly get it back over her head, and then another neck line came off a dog and the dog also backed out his harness- so that was 3 times he had to stop and had a dog in the sled for 12 miles so he dropped from 12th to 17th. Not good. It was one of those “this is the last race we’re going to do this year” moments (which did pass and we’re doing 2 more races).
The awards at L’ Epihanie are the nicest of any of the Quebec races – free buffet dinner at the ceremony!! When I went up to get my check for 10th place I was surprised to hear loud cheering from the New Hampshire contingent and all around the room – I think people have seen me try hard and have problems all year and were happy I finally had been successful! I will publish the picture, but you won’t be able to tell it’s me in the black shirt and red ball cap, cause Randy took a picture of the back of me!
Randy has healed from the “dragging injury” but now his left knee is sprained and it’s really putting a crimp in his racing style (makes pumping to help the dogs impossible and turning corners painful) so he is pretty much limping very short distances- I, on the other hand, have less pain in my elbow so I am on the mend.
After the buffet/awards fed dogs in the dark and left for Bellerives and the “sugar shack” – left about 7:30p but as we left town Randy noticed that the alternator was not charging, which meant to him (certainly not to me) that the belt was broken – so we stopped at a closed store under a big light and Randy proceeded to pull a belt out of the back of the truck fixed things. The thing you have to recognize and appreciate about this man is that not only did he have the gauge to monitor, he diagnosed the problem, had the forsight to bring many extra parts for all kinds of problems, had the tools and the knowledge to do the job!! Pretty amazing husband I have!!! So we were back on our way in 15 minutes and back to the sugar shack by 9p.
Monday was a recovery day – all of us were very tired and napped and read much of the day until time to go out to the restaurant with Bellerives and Lou Serre. Talk about good dogsledding stories!!!!!
Lou – had 3 dogs not pulling in his team on Sunday and couldn’t fit all of them in the back so left them with someone on the trail , thereby getting disqualified – his dog’s feet need some healing-
Claude – fasted time on Sunday, but Saturday he stopped to load a dog and went off the trail into someone’s back yard, the dog escaped from the bag, then caught up with him later in the trail and he was able to coax the dog back to him and re-load him
Mellanie- Sat and Sun went off the trail (little to no birm on the trail in the fields) and needed help to get back on and still came in first place in the 8 dog
Casey Butler – head on passing Rudy Ropertz (this season’s leader in the unlimited and many other classes at every race, from Germany) and Rudy’s leaders jump over his team and cause a cluster – Casey is so upset he calls his Dad, Doug, on his cell phone while he is still racing!!!
And those are only the highlites!!!!! We all had to agree at dinner last nite, that dogsled racing provides an endless number of great stories of courage and stamina and frustration and humor and you can’t do it just because you have to win, you do it because you want to compete and do the best you and your dogs can do…how’s that for philosophical??!!
Tonite another dinner in the sugar shack with spaghetti sauce from Lou’s wife and me making 7 layer cookies (I just hope I can remember what the 7 layers are…..)
The pictures are of Randy and Diane Lyman at the starting and finishing chute, a movie showing some scenes from the truck, me getting my 10th place check from “very far away”, one of the characters they had for the kids, and some snow sculptures they were doing and pix of Melanie leaving the chute on Sunday with Claude and Randy in the backround- and oh yeah, some of the inside of the "infamous DeKuiper Dog Truck" - that's about as tidy as I can make it look!