So a while ago we promised that we would be featuring some of our racers first Tuesday Night Race – this week we’re going all the way back to the FIRST Tuesday Night Race…although it was on a Wednesday back then…check out the history of your favourite paddlesport race series here:

How the race series came about

According to DCK co-owner Bob Putnam, most of the credit has to go to local adventure racer Dave Norona who inspired the idea of a paddle race by his ‘Days with Dave’ race days where local “tough guys” and adventure racers would follow Dave around North Vancouver running, mountain biking, and borrowing kayaks from Deep Cove Kayak to paddle. Dave suggested that DCK run races on Wednesday Nights.

And ‘Tuesday’ Night Races were born.

The first race

On April 28, 1999 16 racers lined up for the very first race. Included in the line up were the now-familiar faces of Bob Putnam, Joel Perkins, Daryl Remmler, Kevin Vallely, Frank Wolf, Matt Kelly and Dave Norona. The categories were double kayak, single kayak, canoe and surfski. Bob is very keen to point out that he beat Joel by 3 seconds in their single kayaks! The full results look like this:

April 28th, 1999
Race route: Race started from the government wharf, circle the 5 km/h buoy, returned to the Panorama Park swimming dock, back to the buoy and returned to the government wharf.

Approximate distance: 2 Km

 

HEAT #1
RACER # NAME TIME BOAT TYPE
5047 Parker & Enns 22:44 Double Kayak
5051 Kevin Vallely 22:46 Single Kayak
5049 Bob Putnam 23:03 Single Kayak
5056 Joel Perkins 23:06 Single Kayak
5059 Paul German 23:20 Single Kayak
5050 Craig & Bjiaranson 24:15 Single Kayak
5055 Pavel Szopa 24:55 Single Kayak
5052 Nicky Hastings 25:57 Single Kayak
5054 Frank & Shannon 26:35 Canoe
5057 Lucy Nicholl 26:52 Single Kayak
5048 Marcia Urdang 27:55 Single Kayak
5053 Trish & Yasmin 29:39 Double Kayak
5058 Suzanne Zygmunt 30:45 Single Kayak

 

HEAT #2
RACER # NAME TIME BOAT TYPE
5104 Paul Hardy 17:41 Surf Ski
5103 Dave Norona 18:45 Surf Ski
5111 M. Kelly 19:42 Surf Ski
5107 Greg Inkster 20:45 Surf Ski
5110 Remmler & Patrick 21:11 Canoe
5105 Craig Nicholson 21:31 Surf Ski
5102 Babe 22:12 Surf Ski
5109 Matt Nuttall 22:25 Single Kayak

The first season

There were 16 races in the first season, and for that season Bob was paddling single kayaks, never really seeing himself as a surfskier. That came the year later, in 2000. Bob was clearly not always ahead of the curve 😉 For the first season, he says that it was mostly just he and Joel trying to beat each other in single kayaks, with no real focus on technique, and just using regular rental paddles. Oh, how things change!!

Each week was a different race, with racers having to be prepared for paddling, swimming, running, or a combo of all three. Bob and Dave would make up the race an hour before it started. One of the more memorable races involved a cargo net being set up over the government dock. The race started with a run through the woods to the teaching bay on the right of Deep Cove, swim to the dock and then clamber up the cargo net (with the hazards of people falling on you from above) and then running back to the kayak shop. Can you imagine if we tried that today!?

The organisers obviously had some fun with these races, with results often including such entries as:

Name Time Category
Dwayne No Excuse Single Kayak
Mary Same excuse as Dwayne Single Kayak
Glen Who knows Single Kayak
Csilla & Jeff water looked cold Double Kayak
Mark had to go to dinner ?
Liza heard about killer jellies ?

I can’t imagine Karly standing for that…

That first season saw current racers Steve Lambie, Brian Page, Rod Hope, Tom Hoskins, Matt Kelly and Daryl Remmler as well as Joel and Bob. Without these pioneers of paddlesport racing in Deep Cove, we probably wouldn’t have the huge community of racers that we have today. Thanks to those guys, our race series gets stronger every week and we are STOKED that this is our 20th Season!

We would LOVE to see pictures from the older TNR races if you have any old photos let us know, or if anyone is interested in seeing the archived results please email Amy at communications@deepcovekayak.com