A bit overdue, but honestly we are extremely appreciative of all your efforts and work. We can’t thank you enough for your tireless hours. What an incredible weekend made possible by both the staff and more importantly the volunteers at RockstAR! This is a brief review and thanks to all of you.
FRIDAY:
Friday morning saw Drew come off a 24-hour shift and drive straight to Bark Lake – glad you made it! A bleary-eyed Drew was then put to task unloading the truck littered with RockstAR paraphernalia and about 30 cases of beer! Patty also made the early morning trek up to Bark Lake to once again take on a multitude of tasks that would get the party started.
Sean and Mark were out in the woods for most of the day setting the various bug-infested cp’s (why people enjoy this race were not entirely sure☺ )
The days arrivals included: Hillary my lovely assistant, Donna (Mark’s mom) Fernando (Donna’s boarder from Spain), Chris and Liz our incredible scuba crew, Jennifer young (getting to be a Hark Events regular volunteer) and of course the Bark Lake staff that seemed to be magicians in helping us get the job done – Bonnie, Melissa, Joe, Kim and Alexis.
By Friday night we were set for the morning rush. Everyone was briefed and had their task for the next morning.
SATURDAY:
First shift of races were lined up on the red carpet at 8am sharp!
The registration desk was hopping. Donna Arnold was now firmly in charge of three, 14 year-olds that assisted in getting the teams registered. Both Donna and the young women from the Bark Lake Leadership program kept the red carpet moving. We need to mention that Donna has been at every one of our races since day one. We can’t thank our families enough when it comes to these events.
Petra, a long time volunteer that has also never missed a race since 2003! Petra made the drive on Friday night only to have to leave Saturday at noon. She managed all of the volunteer check-ins and assignments. Thanks Petra we missed you at the post race party!
Mike VanDenBosch was there to snap the RockstAR shots – check out his photos http://mikewasthere.zoomphoto.ca/events/. Mike has always played two rolls – the man that takes the pics and the guy that radios us and says “hey – should this team be on the road?” He acts as our extra set of eyes out in the woods.
TRUCKS:
If you’ve ever been on a truck team at one of our races – you know the pace is fast and furious and problems always seem to creep up. Here’s problem number one: 3 trucks, 2 drivers. Hmm – who do we call? Bark Lake superstar team! Bonnie happened to mention that Melissa has her bus license – perfect – “hey Melissa any chance you could drive a truck for us?” This is after we have already asked Melissa to drive my truck to the start line for a team that needed to take extra bathroom breaks and missed getting on the bus to the start line. (These are also the guys that created the promo video for the race – so unfortunately we couldn’t leave them standing at Bark Lake while the race went off without them!)
Truck drivers, Patty and Drew and Melissa – each had a Loader: Ursula, Fernando and two of the Bark Lake boys that helped us with bikes all day. Patty sported her handmade RockstAR jean jacket all day – what a treat☺. She was in true RockstAR spirit. Just when there seemed to be a lull and the 8-hour racers were off – it was time to load all of the 4 hour bikes. Just an FYI, but over ½ of the 4-hour racers had never raced before. This became all too apparent when we were requesting that teams start loading their bikes on the truck. Flat tires, bad chains, teams not really understanding how quickly we needed the bikes in order to get them to the start line in time! Wow – next year they will be pros. (promise).
FYI:
Ursula helped all day and night both Friday, Saturday and into Sunday. When she mentioned helping us – she asked if Sean could bring her stuff up in his van as she was planning on bike riding to Bark lake – — FROM MISSISSAUGA! We thank you for all your hard work and all the ribbing you took (mostly from me) about the bed. It was great fun having you there☺
HUB
In the mean time – back at the ranch…Andrew Cameron doesn’t have an assignment until 10am. Well, don’t tell me that – if you look like you might be relaxing you better hide from me because I always seem to have something for everyone to do☺ “Hey Andrew…can you carry this heavy stuff to the Hub?” Andrew, has some special gene that makes him perpetual happy and kind (I on the other hand seem to have been given the gene that is perpetually demanding and grumpy – although in my defense I seem to share some of this genetic problem with other race directors…) Anyway, Mr. Sunny and Happy not only takes all the Hub food down but sets up a lovely arrangement fit for RockstAR racers. Who knew that Andrew would later be called upon to be happy and sunny in the woods for about 4 hours at night.
WANAKITA:
Special thanks to Mark Burger for standing out at CP 60 for 7 hours! I know it was probably lonely and I know I asked you to be ready the second Sean rolled in to drive you out there (and then you weren’t ready because you thought you should be a do-gooder and fix someone’s bike☺ ) anyway – thank you for taking the time to help us and we know you didn’t end up racing but I loved your team name (Test of Marriage) and I’m sure we will see Mr. and Mrs. Burger out to RockstAR 2010!
Now problem number two has arrived. Our OPP officer has managed to take a coffee break and is not at the 503 road crossing for the racers. My wonderful husband (with a small background in policing) manages to get himself into the road crossing position before all the racers arrive while we search for Mr. OPP. Once again Melissa is sent out in someone’s truck to pick up Mark at the crossing while a replacement could be found. (Mr. OPP did show up and managed to get there before the teams).
SAFTEY:
Scott and his crew, Deanna, Boris, Tammy and Gary from Highlands Wilderness Training Institute were in for an easy day…well okay easy until about 7pm at night! We want to extend a huge thank you to Scott and the crew for managing any and all levels of injury during the race and into the evening. More on these guys at the bottom of this letter…
Once Andrew Cameron was finished with his Hub kitchen detail, he was then on his bike to ride sweep behind the last racers. This guy was a bike mechanic on wheels and thank goodness or else some teams would be in for a long walk! Just another mention – Andrew also went on to ride behind the last 4 hour team and take down all the course marking from both races! Wow – thank you!
Back at the bat cave – wave two of registration was going on for the 4-hour course. No rest for the weary! Donna and the ladies were now Superstars in their own right getting it all done. Hillary in her flashy silver pants had taken on three jobs at the passport table. Manage passports, make all wayward teams pay (that were missing various payments) and take breakfast, and extra dinner orders…thank you Hillary, since we work together so much you are one of the only people that knows how my brain works and can anticipate what I will want with all of these things!
WATER:
What a lovely place to be if you have a boat and some fuel. Bonnie our fearless leader was out in her stalk-a-razzi spot ready to help or hinder teams (as she saw fit). In all honesty, we can’t thank her enough. Bonnie has acted as our Bark Lake liaison and co-captain through out the entire race planning process. She is an incredible woman with a spirit that rivals no person I have ever met. Bonnie co-created the snorkel option with that discs and managed the entire testing and set up, she was the “go-to” on all trouble areas and she managed the water safety (and feeding hot rods to all that would take them).
Also in the water category – a stellar performance by our scuba crew Liz and Chris! These two spent a lot of frigid time making sure our water babies were safe and breathing only air. You can’t imagine the amount of race relief we had having two extremely qualified and calm people working this station. Mark, Sean and I always start with safe, then fun in our course designs and without these two we would not be able to run this exciting part of the event.
CPA:
Jennifer and Trish along with an assortment of well wishers and spectators watched as teams fired into CPA. They came in so fast they left dust skids and CP staff bracing for position. Excellent work to Jennifer and Trish – who managed this CP without a hitch.
Now, I’m not sure but I think Elsa also made her way out her to help when the 4-hour racers rolled in. I know when she arrived I wasn’t sure quite where to place her – but she snapped a bunch of photos and ended up as part of the incredible finish line crew.
CPB:
Two men and their chairs. Thank you to both Phil and Murray for working while support their wives as their lovely better-halfs raced. I can’t remember if it was Phil or Murray that was spending their 25th(?) wedding anniversary watching his wife race RockstAR – but you guys did a great job! CPB appeared to be the most relaxing of the CP’s – until about 6:45 – then look out! Mayhem as teams scrambled to get into the CP before the 7pm cut-off. I know Trish joined the guys after her work at CPA – thanks Trish!
SEARCH AND RESCUE:
Well this list could basically take up the entire staff and volunteers – but let me give you a breakdown of what occurred once we realized that three teams were off in the woods watching for fire flies and the moon rise.
Heather: My job was to co-ordinate what was happening at base camp with what was going on in the woods. It was also my job to manage the angry “results mob” that was growing outside our little HQ hideaway.
Sean: was the main liaison between our search and rescue crew and creating at list of all possibilities of where the remaining teams were not. Basically Sean made a list of every possible place we could locate them and then we started eliminating options. Sean checked all the details of their planned route as well as checking for any place that they may have ended up.
Team 369 Xstrata was found quickly near Bark Lake. That left team 207 from the 4-hour course and team 272 from the 8-hour course.
Patty, Hillary and Barb (racer from Tree Huggers and long time Orienteering specialist) all took over finishing the task of inputting all of the data from the 8-hour course.) Thank you ladies – I know how confusing and noisy HQ was and it was a difficult task to get through with me taking the computer away every five seconds.
Bonnie, and Scott:
These two drove the boat around and around looking along the water’s edge. Bonnie spotted a tiny light along the shore and booted it to the last spot she saw the light. With a lot of whistling and yelling – team 207 was located making their way along the edge of bark Lake (with what turned out to be a teeny, tiny flashlight). These guy were very happy to see our rescue team. One down and one to go. Nice work eagle eyes Bonnie.
Scott:
Scott was calm, cool (well cold most of the time) and collected. It always pays to work with qualified people and Scott certainly knew what he was doing. As the search for 272 wore on, Scott became our liaison with the outside OPP. It was looking like we were going to have to call in the big guns if we didn’t find team 272 soon. Now, from a race director’s experience – Mark, Sean and I know that teams almost always get lost. We did not want to have to start the process of a full-scale search and rescue (costly, timely and not so effective when we had a good idea where the team probably was). We just kept eliminating possibilities about where the team could be and kept on searching. Scott was so incredibly helpful with this process – we hope you will come back each year!
The A-Team: (cue theme music)
Not quite – but Mark (Mr. T for most of the morning), Andrew and Drew our three night savvy trackers could have been featured in the next season of ManTracker. These three set out to find team 272 in a marshy swampy area that Sean and myself believed they would most likely be. Efforts were doubled to find the team – Mark later told me they were hot on the team’s trail by finding footprints in the swampy mud of the section they were on.
The three guys basically made a triangle and worked their way towards where they thought the prey – team was headed.
Melissa rocking it out at Bark Lake!
Mike and Ursula:
Any good navigator would know that once they were turned around, they should head out on a safety bearing towards the road. Thankfully this is what team 272 did. Once they knew they were in a bit of trouble they shot a bearing to the trail that lead out to the 503 hwy.
Sean and I sent Ursula and Mike towards that trail with an FRS and main radio to see if they could pick up their transmission. Now, I am unclear as to whether they found them using the radio or spotted them coming out onto the road but low and behold – team 272. Happy but cold and ready to return to Bark Lake.
PARTY:
Once Mr. T arrived back on scene the RockstAR party could get into full swing a special thank you to Mark for making the night fun. (kisses from me)
TAKE DOWN:
After a long night of partying, the morning probably brings the most thankless job of all. Take down. Special thanks to Drew, Patty, Hillary, Melissa, Bonnie, Ursula, for helping (being forced) to take down all of the stuff and loading it onto the trucks.
IN THE END:
Everyone stepped up to the plate to help us make this event a success. We can’t thank you enough and we hope that you will be part of our team any year that you are available.
Thank you thank you!
(by the way…Sean has Storm the Ten coming up and Mark and I have Trek or Treat – both local races – lots of fun – lots of candy and nice people and a nice shirt and even lunch or pizza and coffee and good coffee – anyway just thought I put that out there☺
We love you all!!
FULL DAY TRAINING – A must do course!
Sunday March 21st, 2010 – Navigation 101 START: 12:30 pm
On Saturday January the 16th, 2010, Hark Events is hosting a year end wrap up and Season Kick off for all of the adventure racers and multi-sporters out there (if that is a word). Traditionally in Ontario a season ending party was held by Barb Campbell and Richard Ehrlich from the 
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