Targhee Today

Grand Targhee Resort held the annual 24 Hours of Targhee mountain bike race this past weekend, with solo and team riders lapping an 8+  mile course (with 1000+ ft elevation gain per lap!) from noon on Saturday through noon on Sunday.  Goal?  To do as many laps as possible  in 24 hours.  And stay awake . . .

Local dynamic duo of Targhee Ambassador Troy Barry and Cary Smith joined forces for the first time and completed 34 laps to take first place in the men’s two-person team category.  The Barry/Smith team was prepping for the 24 Hours of Moab, and judging from their season(s) and this race, we’d wager they finish at the top.

Team Kuhl/Scott won the men’s four-person team category and Rebecca Rusch, fresh off her win at the Leadville 100, completed 21 laps for a first place finish.

It wasn’t all about the pros though.  Elite athletes were joined by recreation riders like PJ Putton, Lindsey Kennedy, Jaclyn Bernard and Martha Berhesch of the Double D’s – who sported reflective over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders as team uniforms.  Locals Brian Charrette, Troy Olson, Joe Calder and Sean Doyle, aptly named “D-Runk”, hydrated with a canned hops/barley combination and kept pace with some of the professional racers, turning in lap times of 36 and 44 minutes.  But the fastest lap was completed by team Kuhl/Scott at 35 minutes.

Here’s a race summary from competitor Troy Barry:

Following in the footsteps of this year’s inaugural Pierre’s Hole 50/100 the third annual 24 hours of Grand Targhee found itself prepared to put its licks on those whom entered. The course improved from last years from the additional single track added from Pierre’s created a new lap about 9 miles in length and 950 vertical feet of climbing, good enough to punish you over 24 hours. Fortunately the weather was cooperating with 75 degrees of sun filled sky (vs. the inclimate snowy weather from Pierre’s two weeks earlier).

Grand Targhee put up for grabs 1000 bucks in cool cash to the winners of the Solo and Duo categories enticing several racers to travel from out of state to the race start in hopes of capturing the cash. The women’s category included this year’s 24 Hour World Champion and Leadville winner Rebecca Rusch at the start line. Pressure for Rusch would come from 24 local endurance veteran Tracy Petervary. The men would see Greg Martin and Mike Herlinger from Ketchum, ID show up with an appetite for the 1K. Greg would disclose at the beginning of the race he needed the money to make a trip to the McKenzie river the following week, thus earn the cash and go or stay home. Micheal Shane would arrive to work himself on his single speed. The duo men would see locals Cary Smith (2nd at 24 hours Worlds) and Troy Barry (2009 Cream Puff winner and two time 24 hours duo winner) team up to create a dynamic that looked impressive on paper, but could they race motivated together this late in an already successful season. The women’s Duo category would see local talent Kate Lynch (3rd at Pierre’s) and Carmen Messina (Pierre’s 100 finisher) team up for the first time. The four man teams would see five legit teams on the starting line including the Pro Kuhl/Scott team heralding out of Salt Lake City, which would appear on paper to be the team to beat.

The race would begin at high noon with the temperatures rising and the heat coming from the Kuhl/Scott team. Right off the gun Kevin Day would blister out of the gate and jump to the front with the intentions of putting time on the field immediately. Two man team member, and Grand Targhee Mountain Ambassador, Troy Barry would immediately recognize the hot pace and begin jumping back across the gap with Troy Olson from four man team D-runk chasing. Two riders, Kevin Day and Troy Barry, would top out at the courses highest point on one another’s wheel and head into the infamous sidewinder descent together. Unfortunately for Barry a burped tire while descending would take the air out of his speed and Day would continue to set the fastest lap of the race at 35 minutes with Barry 40 seconds behind nursing a flat tire. Fortunately for the two up team of Smith & Barry this race would not be won on the first lap. Following the two front runners would be Olson chasing in vain reducing time lost to the Kuhl team.

As the afternoon turned into evening the skies began to cool with evening breezes but this would not be the case in the race. The Kuhl/Scott team would find pressure from the D-runk team with a slim 20 minute advantage. Even more curious would be the dead heat race as Smith & Barry kept pace with the Kuhl team, separated only by seconds. The solo men’s race found Greg Martin pushing the pace on the field, while Rusch and Petervary would be separated by only minutes on the clock. These time gaps would remain pretty much the same into the mid evening of the night. While the clock struck midnight Rusch would be only about a lap up on Petervary, Martin would see about the same gap on second place Herlinger. The Duo team of Barry and Smith would find themselves several laps ahead of the second place duo team but only 6 minutes down on the pro four man Kuhl/Scott team. With this settling in the minds of these two teams it became obvious that if this could continue this would be the race within the race at the 2009 edition. These two teams would complete 17 laps by midnight, meanwhile the solo riders were nearing there 11th lap.

As the witching hours settled into the race camp reports of moose, deer, and owls spread through camp with “did you see the moose down in Ricks” or “did you hear the owl up on Sidewinder” making for all the more excitement of a race in the Tetons.

Sometime around 3 A.M., with the camp mostly asleep, the two man team of Smith and Barry had cut three minutes out of the four man Kuhl team. By 3:30 A.M. the pass had occurred and the duo would come out of their 4 A.M. lap with a 6 minute reversal and a 3 minute lead over team Kuhl. Energized from these late night events Smith and Barry would keep the pace high. As team Kuhl was overheard saying “they keep putting the wood to us” throughout the early morning hours. However, not admitting defeat the Kuhl/Scott team would rally all morning and bring the deficit to about 30 seconds several times only to lose a couple of minutes laps later. Rebecca Rusch would come into daylight with a three lap lead over Petervery. Martin would also find himself with a commanding lead but not enough to totally relax and hit the showers or get some rest.

Late morning would see racing continue to heat up as teams, duo, and solo riders would be trying to squeak out as many laps as possible and leave the Start/Finish by 11:30 to get one more lap in the books. Rusch would do the math and be able to relax and sit out some of the clock time with a commanding lead. Rusch would finish with 21 laps over second place Petervary with 20. Martin and Herlinger would also be separated by 1 lap by races end. Shane would put in an incredible 20 laps on his single speed to win his sadistic division. Womens Duo team of Lynch and Messina would put in 20 laps to win their division, while four man team Kuhl/Scott would find themselves still pushing in chase to the Smith and Barry deficit of 4 minutes. While the talk of truce was running rumor through the camp, the two teams continued the blood bath with one another as neither would say “uncle”. Kevin Day would try to erase a 4 to 5 minute deficit around 10:30 A.M. but Smith would resist the challenge and keep Day at a 1 minute deficit handing the baton off to Barry. Barry would put a last lap effort in and the duo of Smith and Barry would cross the line at 11:27 A.M. waiting out the clock for the arrival of team Kuhl’s Brian Tolbert, Tolbert would cross the line at 11:33. Each team completed 34 laps, over 300 miles of single track and almost 35,000 feet of climbing to be separated by 5 minutes is a true battle of the will and effort required.

With the last racers crossing the finish line, camp was in excitement again with the personal commitments all racers, mechanics, and cooks had invested. This is elation is the satisfaction of closure brought on in the 24 hours of racing.

More photos of the race are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41563767@N07/sets/72157622196675350/

And the results: