THURSDAY NIGHT OFF-ROAD RACE	
	Bike and Tie -- July 24th, 2003 -- 4 miles


The Bike & Tie is a take-off on a Ride & Tie event which includes one horse and two people.  One person starts riding the horse and one starts running the course.  At some point the rider stops and ties his horse & sets off on foot.  The runner reaches the horse and rides it until he overtakes the runner & they switch again.  The racers continue leap-frogging each other until the finish.  We do it with one bike and two people & obviously don't have to tie up the bike, but otherwise follow the same format.  This is meant to be a fun event, so we throw in a few more kinks.  In the past, we have had a Spam table where you got a time bonus for downing a piece of Spam.  The fans loved it, but not the racers, so this year we had two different time bonuses.  You could knock 30 seconds off your time by taking a shorter, but more technical section of the course, and you could knock 10 seconds off your time by picking up stuffed animals along the course and carrying them to the finish (10 seconds per animal).
 
Clint and Rocky smoked the course, both having the advantage of being duathletes.  Tom and Pete were not far behind considering that running is not part of their training regimen.  Steve came alone & talked a passing biker into being his teammate and couldn't have done much better than Tami.  Hope she shows up to more FCC events!  Paul and Roxanne just do it for training, fun & stuffed animals .  Jess and Joel had to run back to the start & get a new bike after the first one lost the derailleur and still completed the course in a very respectable time.  Doug Burnside was grateful to them, because he claims it is the first year he has done it and not come in last.  Kelly completed course, but without her honey because Brandon was out exploring his own course after taking a wrong turn.
 
It was great fun & we managed to complete it before the deluge.  Hope to see you next year.
						Bicycle		Stuffed
						 Bumps		Animal
					Overall  Time		 Time
	Team				Time	 Bonus		 Bonus	Final Time
Rank					

1	Clint Ragan & Rocky Reifenstuhl	20.55	-0.30			20.25
2	Tom Clark & Pete Wilda		24.26	-0.30		-0.40	23.16
3	Steve Clautice & Tami 		26.54			-0.20	26.34
4	Paul Ewers & Roxanne Rigo	30.38	-0.30			30.08
5	Doug Burnside & Joy Ritter	32.59	-0.30		-0.10	32.19
6	Joel Austin & Jess Groshek	34.24				34.24
	Kelly Hill and Brendan Scanlon	DNF