this year was another great year for the green river race in north carolina. the weather was spectacular, sunny and 57 degrees, for a perfect race day. 120(ish) racers lined up above the first rapid, frankenstein, to paddle as hard as they can for the next 4-6 minutes, depending on how fast you go. this is truly one of the hardest, most intense races in the world and it is an amazing experience for both racers and spectators.
(photo: abby whisenant)
all the heavy hitters were back this year for an extremely competitive race. isaac levinson, andrew holcombe, pat keller, chris gragtmans, eric deguil, jason beaks and the list goes on. those were the top finishers this year. isaac had a super fast time of 4:22 to take the top honor followed by andrew @ 4:26 and eric @ 4:34.
chris gragtmans powering through the slides (photo: abby whisenant)
isaac levinson on his way to the finish (photo: abby whisenant)
this year gorilla was hammering out some beatings. its was absolutely incredible the amount of crashes that went on this year. what would normally be a regular crash didn't make it into the carnage reel due to the amount of phenomenal crashes that occurred. i don't know if it was the number of first-timers but something was definitely in the air. most of the action occured at the rapid right before gorilla, which is known as "flying squirrel."
my food friend vaughn first time racing heading through "the notch". (photo: abby whisenant)
me coming off of flying squirrel (not sure how took this photo. hope you don't mind me using it.)
random racer landing flying squirrel (photo: abby whisenant)
i was fortunate enough to go earlier on this year enabling me to watch some of the greatest show in sports. i was also fortunate enough to not be included in the crash reel as my lines were pretty good. i had one spin out after "chief" which pushed me into the eddy and then a flip at "speed trap" but all-in-all it was pretty good. i definitely didn't paddle as hard as i would have liked but at least my lines were smooth. over all i am pretty happy with my first long-boat run down the green. out of the 72 long boaters i placed 45th, 59 out of 139 total racers, with a time of 5:27. not to bad as i could tell i haven't been boating much the last couple months.
enough chatter. here is a highlights and carnage reel brought to you by pilot collective media. they did spectacular job of filming and editing this year.
chris wing of pilot collective crew at the finish (photo: abby whisenant)
first here are the highlights:
now the carnage:
