DeKuiper Racing: Uh oh...........again...............

I mentioned in my last post that I might not be able to report on the race until Sunday or Monday because there likely would not be any cell service at the race site – which is at a park on a mountain top!!! So, the discerning reader might ask, why have you been able to post on Sunday early afternoon……………..? Because we are not at the race site- we are back at Bellerive’s and have been since last nite…… Again, you might ask, why…………..? Because Randy got disqualified and I got run over by a run-away sled!!!!!!!!!

Started out to be a great day – we had had no problem getting to the race site and also climbing the very steep hill up the mountain - Got up to a beautiful sunny day with mild temps and helped many 6 dog teams get out – there were 25 6-dog and 14 unlimited teams. The entries were down a bit from last year for whatever reason (2 of the unlimited teams however, are competing at the Fur Rondy – (so that should have given 2 places moving up without them here!)

We got the team of 14 to the line without too much difficulty and Randy purposely put Ice and Lester in lead because he knew there was a bad left corner in the trail and those 2 generally tend to stay on the right side of the trail – at least better than all our other leaders…. We had a little glitch at the start because I couldn’t hear the countdown but Randy said he started fine – when he got to the bad corner, the “right-handed” dogs hugged the corner hard left and he crashed into the brush they had put down to prevent that from happening – he fell, lost the team and he ended up with a tree, butt first, wedged under all of his sled and between his brake and the sled!!!! It took 3 trail help to lift the sled, get the tree out of the sled by pulling the sled/team backwards – when they got that out the snow hook was tangled and holding the brake down – so picked up the sled and pulled back again and the trail help pulled the snow hook out before Randy was ready to go and he lost the team again – he went down the trail a bit more and had a tangle in front from the soft snow in the middle of the trail and when was untangling the leaders came back towards him and then the snow hook pulled out and he lost the team again – this time for good…………the team came in with another spectator/friend/driver and Randy came in on a snowmachine……………..Ughh……….

You might ask what I was doing while all this was going on and why I wasn’t at the finish line to catch out team when it came in???????? Well…………while I was watching the last unlimited team go out, as they hooked his snow hook to a line to hold him until the countdown, his snow hook rope broke and I saw a team of dogs and sled coming at me at what seemed like the speed of light!!!!!! I was standing in a group of maybe 10 people but I was the only one that got hit by the sled!!! It hit me on the right side and knee and I was down thinking I had a broken leg………..well once the initial pain decrease and I moved my leg I found out it was only sprained – so I hobbled back to our trailer and put ice and a wrap on it – thankfully so many wonderful people pitched in to help us water the dogs and take all the harnesses off - Randy put all the dogs back into the trailer by himself which is a lot of stepping up and down!!!! We decided to leave because Randy was disqualified and I was hurt and wouldn’t be able to help drop dogs from the trailer – so here we are………back at Bellerives, both feeling like we have been run over by a Mack truck and the dogs back in the kennels!!!!

Hopefully I will have use of my knee by Friday cause there is another race, then a weekend off and then the final race the weekend of St. Patrick’s day. I think the the ligament on the inside of my knee is sprained and it will be pretty healed by Friday – it already feels better now than last nite!!!!

I told Randy either God is trying to tell us something loud and clear or else we had this happen so we avoide being in some other place where it would have been worse – it was just too freaky to have 2 terrible things happen to us in one hour!!!!!!

More later!!