The event begins with a pancake breakfast which I think is one of the best things about attending. The next best thing are the hundreds of different dogs you get to see at the event and how crazy some of their owners dress them up. Sarah brings two of her dogs to the walk every year, Aisha the German Shepard and The Wizard, the chocolate lab. This year’s theme was Hollywood and Sarah came prepared with gold stars for each of us to wear, black shirts were mandatory. Going along with the Hollywood theme I was called upon to be Natasha’s personal paparazzi so Sarah would have plethora of photos to choose from for a scrapbook. As you can see in the photo below Natasha gave me the same look Jessica Alba gives to a TMZ photographer. I think I’ve found my calling. The walk started at 9:30am and winds through Bonelli, next to Puddingstone Lake and mile 3 ends somewhere near Raging Waters where the turn around point is. Our group went about 2 miles out before we decided to turn around and head back to eat cupcakes. We sang happy birthday to Natasha and then she was called to the stage to get her awards and prizes. This is a fun event to attend and a great cause to get behind, even though we were exhausted at the end of the day it was worth it.

DISCLAIMER: I realize there are a lot of pictures of kids in this blog, some may even call them cute. This amount of kid pictures is highly unusual for my blogs so don’t get used to it.

Another great demo that returned from last year was the Red Bull helicopter. This helicopter can do barrel rolls and loopty loops. I’m not sure how it does this but it is quite a show stopper. This year we brought our Mark II to the event and not only did I take pictures with it but we also shot lots of video. So for the very first time on our blog I will be posting a few videos along with our photos. Below I have posted videos of the F18 high alpha flyover, the Red Bull helicopter demo and Nicolas Ivanoff’s winning run on the course.

 

The races were very exciting, they started out by having a match up between five wild card competitors that didn’t qualify the day before but still had good times. They added the top two winners of that competition to the field of ten competitors that qualified the previous day. After a few rounds the twelve pilots got narrowed down to eight and then to four. They included Peter Besenyei of Hungary, Hannes Arch of Austria, Paul Bonhomme of Great Britain and Nicolas Ivanoff of France. All of these pilots are extraordinary but it was Ivanoff who eventually came out on top with a time of 1:17.21 which is a record for that course. One interesting thing that happened during the final four match up was Hannes Arch suffering a bird strike halfway threw the race. Luckily he was able to finish the race, although he did come in third, and fly back to the air strip despite the bird ripping a hole on the back of his plane.

 

Watching this event is always exciting, I can’t wait for next year. Check out a few photos and videos from the event below. For more photos check out our GALLERY.

Sea Otter Classic: Day Four

We decided to make our final day at the Sea Otter Classic the most eventful. The weather in Monterey was just as warm and sunny as the day before. Maybe even warmer; our car thermometer read 91 degrees. Once again it was a perfect day to photograph, the sky was blue and cloudless. After having breakfast at the media center we hopped on the shuttle to the bottom of the Downhill course. While Bryan positioned himself about halfway up the course, I stood near the finish line. Luckily the course creators put a few jumps at the end so I got some nice photos of that. As with many of these dangerous mountain bike sports, there were a few people who fell. But these athletes are pretty tough so they all got right up. After the Downhill our fantastic shuttle driver Jen picked us up and brought us back to the media center. Jen and all the shuttles were a very appreciated service for us media folks. I can’t imagine walking to many of these courses.

We filled up on a huge taco lunch at the media center and then headed to the Cross Country course. We got to photograph the start of the men’s race and then we got on another shuttle to a see the women race. The coolest part of this shuttle ride is we actually got to drive on the famous corkscrew at Laguna Seca. It was awesome! Bryan then took another shuttle up to Skyline Road where another section of the course was while I went back to the start/finish line. We photographed there for the next hour and a half and called it a day.

One of the many great things about this trip is that we decided to stay an extra day. In an actual hotel room! With a bed and a shower! We used our extra day to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium so I will have even more photos to share!

For more of our Sea Otter Classic coverage check out Bryan’s race report at Amateur Endurance. You can also see more photos from Day 4 in the GALLERY.

Sea Otter Classic: Day Three

Upon waking up on the third day of the Sea Otter Classic I would say the two things I miss the most are a good nights sleep and showering. At least we have a campsite that has porta-potties and a hose, there are sites here that have neither of those things. It was really foggy yesterday morning but it soon burned away to a beautiful blue, cloudless sky. It also got unusually warm. From what I’ve heard is that it does not normally get into the 80’s in Monterey this time of year. This is probably why they chose to start the recreational bike tours at 9:30am because they figured that’s when it would warm up. Bryan had previously convinced me to sign up with him for the 10 mile recreational bike ride. I’m not sure why I agreed as I can’t even walk straight without falling over. I ended up chickening out at the last minute which allowed Bryan to instead go on the 20 mile tour. I waited at the expo until he got back and took a few photos of the women’s Circuit Race and some other random stuff. After four hours I was beginning to worry as Bryan has never done a mountain bike ride quite so long and in such warm weather. He returned, exhausted as expected but in good spirits. He had run out of water during the ride but luckily there were a few aid stations along the way which provided much needed nourishment. However, the last aid station ran out of water by the time he got there though so all he got was an orange. We decided to go back to camp after his ride so we didn’t really cover any events. The expo was insanely crowded so it was a lot harder to move around freely like we did on the previous days. That was another reason why we decided to head back early. We decided to sleep in the car last and although it was a lot warmer it still wasn’t as comfortable as a real bed.

Check out Bryan’s race coverage at Amateur Endurance. You can also see more photos of Day 3 in the GALLERY.

Sea Otter Classic: Day Two

We started out our day at the Sea Otter Classic with breakfast at the media center and some blogging. After looking over the event schedule for the day we decided to walk over to the Dual Slalom course. The course is set up on a hill above the expo and looks like lots of fun to ride. While I stayed down towards the finish line of the course, Bryan walked all the way up the hill to where the real action was taking place. Dual Slalom participants ride on technical courses complete with sweeping turns, hills and jumps. Two riders race down the hill as fast as they can in hopes to qualify for the finals. These riders go super fast down this course which is pretty dangerous, we saw quite a few wipe outs but nothing serious.