The Sotar Whitewater Challenge

The Sotar Whitewater Challenge

by Lincoln Price

Publication Date: August 1998

The First Mile

It wasn't long before the pain started to take hold. The muscles in my right shoulder felt as if they had become twisted in one solid knot, burning like fire beneath the skin. I could hear Jon and Nate screaming in the rear to paddle harder, yelling and shouting like two boxing coaches stuck at ringside. We all dug in harder despite the pain, stroking our paddles through the water with all our strength. The harder we paddled, the worse the pain would burn. I started to realize that it was only going to get worse, that the pain wouldn't let up, and we hadn't even finished the first mile of the race.

It was the Sotar Whitewater Challenge - a down-river raft race that was determined by who crossed the finish line first. Teams from all over compete with one another for the chance to go to Colorado and race at Gore River in the regional finals. The winning team in Colorado goes on to represent the USA at the international race in Costa Rica.

When Chad Ison, publisher of Extremz Magazine, asked me to form a team for one of the races being held in Hartford, Tennessee on the Pigeon River, I couldn't help saying yes. I had been a raft guide on the Pigeon the summer before and the idea of putting together a team to race on the Pigeon sounded like a dream. The only thing I needed to do was find a team.

The Team

My friend Nathan Davis was the first person I asked to join the team. A year before, we had both fled the flatlands of Florida to find jobs in the Smoky Mountains as river raft guides.

"You wanna be in a raft race?" I asked Nate, knowing quite well that he would be up for it.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, not quite sure if such a thing really existed. Raft races are pretty new, especially in Hartford.

"Yea, SOTAR is holding a race on the Pigeon River," I explained. "The first two winners get to go to Colorado and compete in the finals. What do you think?"

"Let's do it," he replied, sounding like he wanted to win even more than I did.

Next to join the team was Jon Housley, a friend of ours who was also a veteran guide of the Pigeon River. He had been guiding several more years than us and having his experience on the team was absolutely necessary. He agreed and we decided that he and Nate would run the rear of the raft, both being the guides as well as paddlers.

Next, we needed somebody to run the front of the boat with me. We asked Jeff Poleet to fill the position. Jeff was a guide on the Pigeon River as well; but more importantly, he was from Arkansas. Almost all river raft guides from Arkansas are big, strong, and know how to tear their way down a river.

The last two positions were filled by Josh Johnson and David Homan - Florida boys. This meant that they didn't have much experience with a river, but they knew how to surf. Surfers mean strong shoulders, the kind of shoulders we needed for paddling. If we wanted to win, we were going to need powerful paddlers. They agreed to join the team and everything started to fall into place.

There were six of us now, and with that, TEAM EXTREMZ was created.

The Strategy

A day before the race, we started to hear strange rumors about our competition. It seemed that we would be up against some really experienced paddlers. There were teams from NOC (Nantahala Outdoor Center), Ocoee Outdoors, Camp Carolina, and even an all women's team from the USA Rafting Company. Some of the teams had supposedly been training for the event for months, going so far as to tying a raft to a dock and paddling hours just for practice.

This definitely wasn't looking good. It wasn't that we weren't taking the race seriously, it was that the time everyone on TEAM EXTREMZ was working limited us to practicing extensively beforehand. So, we decided we would have to come up with a game plan if we wanted to do well.

Our strategy was this - we would paddle as hard as we could from the start, trying to take an early lead. If this failed, and it seemed as if we had no chance of taking the lead, we unanimously decided we would have no other alternative but to play dirty. There was some talk of placing a few sharp shooters in the woods with pellet guns, or bringing some throwing darts to the race with us. Partaking in combat rafting seemed to be the best technique - this is best done by ramming other rafts into the rocks and side of the river banks. Most importantly, we all decided that no matter what happened, no matter how hard things became, we would at least have to beat the all women's team. "Beat the Girls" soon became our motto and inspiration.

All joking aside, we all agreed that the best way to win the race would have to be done with powerful paddling.

The Rules

Each race team had to register before the race and attend a meeting to learn the rules and regulations. It was there that TEAM EXTREMZ discovered that every rule of the race seemed to contradict our strategies for winning. Any raft making intentional contact with another, whether with their boat or paddle, would be disqualified. There would be two judges in kayaks paddling along with the race to make sure the rules were enforced.

It now seemed that if we wanted to take an early lead, it would have to start with a good position at the starting line. Each team captain chose a number, deciding which raft and position their team would have. Raft #1 was what we wanted. Raft #1 would have the closest position to the current, giving a team the best advantage for taking an early lead. There were four positions altogether, and to no one's surprise, I dipped into the hat and took out Raft #4 - the worst position possible.

Each team was then responsible for examining their raft for safety and ensuring it was inflated to their satisfaction. All the rafts were provided by SOTAR and were identical.

The Starting Line

At the put-in, everyone got their rafts organized and started to put in the river. To make it to the starting line, each team would have to paddle upstream and ferry across the river towards some flatwater and the start of the race. Once you made it to the starting point, you had to line up at the starting line in your assigned positions. The starting line in a raft race is an interesting thing - there is nothing tangible about it. Instead, it is just an imaginary line at some point in the flatwater where everyone decides to line up straight. There were a few initial arguments about the definition of straight...but each team eventually lined up together in agreement and was ready to start.

The teams from NOC and Ocoee Outdoors held the closest positions inside. In position number three was Camp Carolina. TEAM EXTREMZ was stuck in the fourth position, and the all women's team was the farthest outside. Since no other all women's team had entered the race, the women's team from USA automatically won the right to go to Colorado. Therefore, they lost the chance to draw for positions, but were still allowed to race. This meant they were still a serious threat, and our motto "Beat the Girls" was important as ever.

Everyone's paddles hung a few inches above the water, ready and waiting to go. About fifty yards to the left side of the river, the judges shouted out the thirty second warning. Dead silence hung across each team as they called out.

"Fifteen seconds!"

It was time. Each team remained stiff and motionless, not wanting to jump the gun and suffer a fifty second penalty.

"Five seconds!"

White knuckles clung to paddles, hearts pounded with excitement.

"GO!"

The Race

Paddles smacked the water as each team turned on their engines. It seemed as if every boat hit the current at the exact time. Every raft seemed to come together like some giant magnet. Paddles collided with rubber and other paddles. For one brief moment, there was no way to get your paddle into the water. Screams and curses erupted from one raft to another.

In a moment of panic and frustration, I jumped to the nose of the raft and began paddling my oar out front rather than to the side. This gave us the edge we needed and our raft started to pull across the bow of two other rafts. Suddenly, we had the lead we wanted with the NOC raft being the only raft in front of us.

"Paddle! Paddle!" Jon and Nate cried from the back. The rest of us took fast and powerful strokes, determined to catch the lead raft. The first twenty yards of the race looked good. However each raft was only inches apart and the race was completely unpredictable.

In less than twenty seconds, we came to Powerhouse, the first and longest Class III rapid on the Pigeon River. As we paddled into the rapid, we could see the NOC team floating to the right side of the river. This was one of the nastiest spots of the river, being the site of a rock known as Brad's tooth. If a boat hits Brad's tooth at the right angle, it will become stuck and pinned so badly it will take hours to pull out. We watched with hope as the NOC team went directly over it. Unfortunately, the water was just high enough to let them escape.

"Paddle Harder! We can still catch them," Nate screamed.

We all started to count out our strokes, trying to keep paddling in unison and maintaining a lead. Through the next set of rapids, NOC kept a good lead while the rest of the rafts stayed tight together. Each rapid could determine the entire race, everything mattered and there was no room for mistakes. We found our first mistake right as we approached the bridge indicating the one mile marker.

Just before we made the pass underneath it, Camp Carolina found a way to pick up their momentum and pulled along our right side. From there it was an all out dogfight. Both our rafts rammed into one another, making it impossible for the colliding side to paddle.

"Get your paddle off our raft," someone screamed from the Camp Carolina raft. "It's against the rules; you'll get disqualified."

Jeff took it upon himself to act as our negotiator. "Get your damn raft off my paddle," he screamed, trying to pry his blade out from under the two rafts. For the next couple of seconds, both rafts seemed to hand there, unable to separate from one another. Nate thrust a hard pry stroke, trying to angle us past them. His stroke actually backfired and allowed the other raft to slide past us.

"Paddle! Paddle harder!" Jon screamed, not wanting to give up our lead.

Through the next couple of rapids, everyone paddled as hard as physically possible. However, the line up of the race seemed to be set. NOC held their lead, paddling with the grace of professionals. Camp Carolina kept up a good pace in second, and TEAM EXTREMZ trailed close behind in third. The last exchange in positions didn't occur until halfway down the river at the first Class IV rapid known as Lost Guide. The first three teams pulled through the rapid with ease, but Ocoee Outdoors got caught in a strong eddy line at the bottom of the rapid. This enabled the women's team to overtake Ocoee and capture the fourth place spot.

Throughout the rest of the race, there was a good bit of distance between each raft. Still, every team maintained paddling, never stopping for a second. All down the river other rafting companies pulled over to let the race through. "Go! Paddle! C'mon, push it!" We could hear people screaming from the rafts as they cheered us on. After paddling almost four miles straight with no breaks, having a group of spectators cheering you on didn't help that much.

"Paddle you wimps, c'mon paddle, it's your river," Charlie, a witnessing raft guide screamed out to us yelling what he thought was motivational. We all paddled harder, letting the pain just go out of control. We might have been stuck in third place, but we were at least going to look cool while doing it.

The final stretch came a mile later. Everyone refused to quit paddling, wanting to give it everything they had. It was this motivation, and the fact that the women's team was just a few lengths behind us, that gave us our last amount of energy to push to the finish line.

"Beat the girls," Nate and Jon cried out from behind, letting us know that it was getting close. "Beat the girls!"

This was all we needed to hear. Despite the pain, the exhaustion, and the nausea that was starting to overtake us all, we managed to throw out our last set of powerful strokes as we approached the finish line.

The finish line was a bridge about a hundred yards away from the end of the last rapid. As we made our dash towards the finish line, I noticed a lot of people standing on top cheering us on. As we came closer to them, we were each paddling our hearts out. Red faced, sweaty, and out of breath, we passed beneath them and finished the racy by falling out of our boats from exhaustion. Perhaps this smooth finish was what caused a few of our friends to recap our name from TEAM EXTREMZ to TEAM HEART ATTACK!

The Ceremony

Later on that night, each team congratulated one another at the awards ceremony. The ceremony was actually a party sponsored by half the proceeds that went into the SOTAR Race. Medals and awards were given to each team. NOC, Camp Carolina and the USA Raft women's team would be going to Colorado. Even greater than that, one keg of beer and two whole pizzas were provided for each team. It turned out that four kegs of beer and a lot of food was all the reward most of the reams were looking for. The awards ceremony somehow found a way to last the entire night. Apparently, not only could SOTAR make good rafts and provide a great contest, they could also throw a great part as well.