2007 Cheat Race

Individual Results Class Results Team Results

Videos of the Cheat Race (coming soon)

Additional comments by 2006 Cheat Race winner, Geoff Calhoun

2007 Cheat Canyon Race Recap

Article by Rick Gusic

"There were so many boats, paddles and bodies at the mass start, I could have sworn that the sun was being blocked out!!" - Tim Kennedy (Colorado Boater)

With the above classic quote and yet another Cheat Race on the books, here's a few random thoughts from this year's race.

- We had almost perfect racing conditions again. Temperatures were around 70 degrees and the water floating was hovering right at 2 foot (on the Rt 26 bridge gauge) Each year we sort of fine tune things in terms of running the race and this year seemed to go the smoothest. We did set yet another attendance record, having 151 racers (143 boats) and everyone did well, no injuries or broken boats.

- Starting a 151 person mass start race, at 5:30 at night, then getting all those people & boats out of the canyon and back to a post race party before dark,....it isn't easy. Coordinating racers, buses, beer, shuttles, racing bibs, trucks, shuttles, food vendors, volunteers and everything else can make one nuts. Fortunately, the Cheat Race has an incredible group of volunteers, pulling the race off again without a hitch. Judy, Karen, Larry, Dave Hough and Michelle Gusic with the time keeping. Charlie Kennedy with collecting bibs. Liz and Katie from Laurel Highland River Tours at the registration. Neal Dana, Rich Yester, Kevin Kurcina and Kieth Kifter with the safety. Jeff Prycl with beer duties. Chris Herring with setting up the food. Keith Heasley, John Jeffries with Mountain Streams driving some trucks and letting us use their property for the party. Glenn Miller for shuttles. Paul and Wendy over at Cheat River Outfitters for letting us use their bus. Sally and Keith from the Friends of the Cheat. The list goes on and on. Please thank these people if you see them. If I missed someone, please let me know and I'll add you in. It's great to see everyone come together once a year for a great time.

- Special Thanks to Jeff Prycl of Rocky Mountain Kayak for donating over $1,400 worth of prizes. We handed out about 25 some prizes to the class winners and raffled off another 28 prizes to the racers. Charley Hartley won the raffle for the $300+ H2O paddle of choice!

- For individual, class and team race winners, please see the links at the top of this page.

- We had over 27 women enter this years race. Double last year's total. There were quite a few very fast women racing this year and congrats to all of them who showed up! Chara Whittemore would take the overall crown and win her 2nd title, beating three time winner Heather Rau.

- We had a pretty big showdown this year in the Men's division. Three time winner Andrew McEwan faced off against recent 3x winner Geoff Calhoun. Two of the USA's fastest wildwater racers finally meeting head to head. Andrew would prevail and take his 4th title by almost 3 minutes!

- For the first time in the seven year team race history, Team Mountain Streams didn't win their division. Whether they're getting old, getting slow or somewhere in between (or maybe two of their racers being late from the Upper Yough) the hardened paddlers from MS&T collapsed this year. Out of the 18 Club/Non Pro teams racing, MS&T's guys dropped down from 1st to 4th place. Where's Dan Herring when you need him? Break out the speedo's!!!

- As far as racing goes, the new hotbed of racing is definitely now located in the Washington DC area. The Little Falls Wild Water Club put together two teams that swept both the pro and non pro team comps. Easily winning both. Tom McEwen's Liquid Adventures school brought up another four more teams too, with his own led 'Macs LAKS' team finishing 5th in the Club comp.

- The Three Rivers Paddling Club has now beaten their interstate nemesis, the Cleveland Keelhaulers, five out of the past seven years. Have the Keelhaulers had it? Washed up? Where's chief protagonist Matt Muir?

- Special shout out to Tom McEwan who brought up some 21 boaters to the race, most being associated with his Liquid Adventures Kayak School. Not only did Tom bring them up to race, but Tom kicked some serious butt himself, finishing 16th overall while racing in his Prijon Tornado.

- If you haven't seen a Cheat Canyon Race mass start yet....you are really missing something. Words cannot do justice the intensity, chaos and everything else when 143 boats all start off at the same time. This year we set up a number of cameras to capture some of the action. Two at the start, one at Decision, one at Big Nasty and one at the finish line. We have some videos up top on this page, look for more in the future.

- Steven Greybill won his 4th Short Boat title. Congrats! The guy can sure move a Dagger Piedra pretty damn fast.

- Did John Luv, one of filmers, make it out of the canyon ok? Thanks for the videoing John!

- Make sure you check out the Cheat Canyon Race Hall of Fame on the website. We have updated the all the historical medal results. Check to see how you have done compared to other past legendary racers.

- We had 151 people and 143 boats. This sort of passed 2005's record, of 149 people and 144 boats. As far as I know, the Cheat Canyon Race is by far the largest whitewater kayak race in the United States. Thanks to all the racers for making it happen. There is more to kayaking than 'Young Guns throwing ends' and other freestyle games, and your participation helps show that. Kayak racing is right up there and props to all for doing it.

- Hopefully the food was ok? Please send your thoughts on this if you have any.

- Negative news from the race. The only issue/problem that we had this year are a few racers creating a safety issue for the second year in a row. A few guys decided to take their bibs off, put on early, goof around and then not report in at the take out. This held up our time keepers and shuttle crew as they tried to account for the supposed 'missing racers' at the end of the day. These volunteers have a lot on their plate down there and didn't need this hassle. The five boaters did cross the line earlier but said they weren't in the race. The five of you who did it, I have your names and I filmed you lying on video too (where you said you weren't racing) You owe a lot of people an apology for holding things up at the takeout. There's no need to screw things up for the rest of the legitimate racers and volunteers trying to do good thing. Pretty low class thing to do.

- To wrap this all up, thanks to everyone for participating and helping out with this year's race. If you have any suggestions, ideas or improvements, please do let me know and send them to rick@thompsongusic.com. We're open for any ideas in making the race better.