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The Two Below duo is the first race of the 2010 Grass Roots Racing season and took place on January 23rd and 24th this year. The race is designed to be in a stage format so that racers can have the experience of racing 5-8 hours in the winter without risking frostbite or hypothermia. This race (2BD) originated at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort to be run in conjunction with their Winterfest. However, this year GRR was contacted by the Warren County Council for tourism to include it in their Winterfest. The council—as well as the community of Warren—bent over backwards to help make this happen, and this event proved to be such a success that GRR will probably continue to hold the 2BD in Warren for years to come.

The race started—as in year’s past—with the “biathlon”. The GRR version of biathlon is a run shoot combination that has racers pitting their running ability against rough hilly terrain, while pitting their shooting ability against clay pigeons. The event is run in a combination of laps and heats that allows each team 4 visits to the shooting stations and allows each racer to take two shots at two clay pigeons. For each “hit”, racers are awarded a poker chip and are sent on their way to run a 1.5 mile loop. At the end of the loop each team must present their poker chips to the volunteers at the Penalty Lap Zone (PLZ). In order to shoot again, the team must have a total of four poker chips. If they only have two, they must complete two penalty laps. If they have one, they must complete three laps, and so on. Each lap is a mere 150 meters, but in snow this adds up quickly. The motivation to hit the clay pigeons was high—even if the ability was not. On average teams hit a couple of pigeons per visit. The most glaring exception to this was Russian team La Tortuga.

Elena Bulakhtina and Maxim Mikheev are newcomers to Grass Roots Racing, and their slight builds and determined looks had the other racers buzzing. It did not take long for rumors to start flying that they were Olympic Biathletes on their way to Vancouver. At the pre-race safety meeting Elena tried to disprove these rumors by asking to see how the shotguns worked. Everyone nodded in certainty that she was likely extremely familiar with a 22 caliber target rifle but foreign to the “over under” double barrel 12 gauge shot gun. This theory made sense, until Elena made it very obvious that guns were not her “thing”. She was a huge hit among volunteers as she and Maxim continued to show that—if pressed—they probably couldn’t hit the side of a barn, but would be the first to admit it and laugh about it.

All in all each racer ran six miles, plus an additional 1-1 ½ miles in penalty laps, and shot at eight clay pigeons. It was team Yellow Snow—Chris Welsh and Dan Snyder—that dominated this event by averaging at least a couple hits per lap and “clearing” all four pigeons on one of the later laps. This proved a big advantage as racers were getting fatigued, and taking almost 60 seconds per penalty lap. Yellow Snow won with a time of 47:11, a full 7:03 faster than the second place team—Rusted Nuts—made up of Randy Golab and Tony Mazza. The closest team to Yellow Snow was the Relay team Big Muddy Bloody Old Chub Lead Pipes who had a time of 49:54. However, they were able to split the running duties among two of their four teammates and this gave each runner a chance to run half as far—and to rest between laps. In the Co-Ed division it was Hollyloft/warrenadventures.com—Scott Angove and Melissa McNett—to take top honors with a time of 1:04:42, with the Russian “biathletes” nipping at their heels with a time of 1:12:29. Now it was time to get some rest before stage 2—Nighttime Navigation.

Stage 2 took place at Hearts Content Recreation Area in the Allegheny National Forest. This is the site of some beautiful hiking/cross country ski trails, as well as a permanent orienteering course. Having access to a 1:10,000 scale map with well defined land features proved to be a huge bonus to GRR staff and this made set up for this leg of the race much easier. Punches were placed within 10-20 meters of the permanent markers and were “marked” by reflective hunter tacks (orange and white as used in orienteering markers) to aid spotting with headlamps. No need to vet the 4.5+ mile course, and this saved much time. The course easily lent itself to three distinct loops, which would help to keep racers from simply playing “follow the leader”.

Racers were started Saturday night on the time interval that they finished the biathlon. Yellow Snow was first on the course at 6:00pm sharp, and they were sent to the “yellow” course. Three minutes later, the relay teams were sent off to help fill the seven minute gap that Yellow Snow had on the rest of the field. At 6:07:03 Rusted Nuts were sent onto the Red course, and at 6:08:18 John Ralston and teammate Ripper Rzpecki—Team Snow— were sent onto the blue course. This pattern continued until all racers were in the woods, and as racers finished one course they were given the punch card for the next in the progression until all racers had visited the yellow, red, and blue courses.

This time it was the veteran navigator John Ralston of team Snow that dominated. He and Rzpecki “ripped” the course in a very fast 1:28:21. Rusted Nuts nipped at their heels in an equally respectable time of 1:30:29. Race directors estimated that the winners would take one and a half hours to complete the course and were pleased to have two teams meet that timeline. Third finishers overall were Moxie/warrenadventures.com –Dave Salvatore and Scott Newton—with a very respectable 1:51:28. Meanwhile Yellow Snow destroyed their seven minute lead by pushing too hard through the course and making enough mistakes to take a full 2:14:25 to clear it. Sadly it would be impossible to make up this deficit in Sunday’s duathlon—stage three.

Sunday morning 6:00am and racers are already reporting to the start line at Chapman State Park for Stage three of the 2BD. It’s dark and cold and the wind is picking up. But spirits are incredibly high considering the conditions and the amount of time that these folks spent on their feet yesterday. Start time for Stage three is 7:00am and the race is to consist of a one mile “sprint” following snowmobile trail from the start line to the bike drop area. Racers will then transition to bikes and follow a dirt (ice!) road for 700 meters to the Rocky Gap ATV trail intersection. Here they will enter the woods on the ATV trail and follow the “Chapman” loop for 5.4 miles to the Rocky Gap parking area where they will report to race staff and return 5.4 miles on the western portion of the loop to their entry/exit point. Then they will report back to the transition area/bike drop and begin their 2.8 mile run—over hill and dale—to the finish. The mileage does not sound like much, but under the conditions present this was a big undertaking.

At “Go”, it was team Yellow Snow that dominated. They reported to the bike drop first and were showing their biking skills on ice as they entered the forest at the trail intersection. The rest of the field was in various degrees of hot pursuit, but Hollyloft/warrenadventures.com—McNett/Angove—was looking extremely relaxed and composed on the ice. Race staff was scratching their heads. These two are awesome mountain bikers, but there was something more to their riding. After the race we realized that they were running on studded snow tires. Their comments after the race, “Best biking I’ve ever done. Can we do another loop?” After talking to other racers we heard many stories of racers that made their own versions of these tires and how well they worked in this event. We are anticipating that this may be the trend for next year’s race.

Back on the race course it was Team Snow that reported first to the turn-around. Yellow Snow, Rusted Nuts, and co-ed team Hollyloft/warrenadventures.com were close behind. At the TA/bike drop race officials spotted Team Snow screaming down the dirt (ice!) road with both feet on the ground. Clearly they wanted to seal the deal and they were well on their way to clinching this race. They had plenty of time on Yellow Snow, but were aware that the gap between them and Rusted Nuts was not so big. Finishing the duathlon in 1:59:55 was enough to secure them first place in the third stage and the overall race as well. Yellow Snow finished the duathlon only five minutes back in 2:04:56, but this was only enough for a third place overall position. Rusted Nuts finished third in the duathlon in 2:12:09 and secured secondd place overall, and won the male division. Co-Ed team Hollyloft/warrenadventures.com completed the course in 2:13:33—less than a minute behind the third place male team—and dominated the co-ed’s for first place in that division. La Tortuga finished in 2:55:16—after having some navigational issues—to secure second place in the co-ed division. And Team Barbed Wire and Bailing Twine gutted out deteriorating conditions—combined with their first adventure race—to be the race’s “lantern rouge” and secure third place in the co-ed division. Despite the efforts made by the other teams, this is the one that we at GRR are most proud of.

We had a blast at the Two Below Duo and hope that all of you join us at next year’s edition. Come see all that Warren and Grass Roots Racing have to offer! And please join us for the Grass Roots Adventure Sprint Series starting in April.