Our first trip to Las Vegas started out great, since the drive was so much less than we've been used to (8 hours from San Carlos!). Most of us got there early Friday morning, and it was cold! We met for breakfast, then some went shopping, some gambling, and some went to bed. We met up with our whole team around 4, and went looking for the tournament site. We could see it, but it took us awhile to find our way into it. Fortunately, we ran into Amy, our lost team member now racing in New Mexico. She'd figured out how to get in, and led our caravan to the site. We set up near our new and old friends, Silver Streaks, Ball or Nothing from Roseville, and Duke City Chile Dogs from Albuquerque. We watched a little of the multi-breed, but it just kept getting colder, so we decided to go find dinner and warm up. Amazingly, we found a Mexican restaurant just around the corner at Sam's Town! We had to wait a little while for our table for twelve, so Dawn went off to lose a roll of nickels.

Check-in was at 6:30, and no one was surprised that it was cold! Touch'N Go helped warm us up, though, because each new team got a box of Krispy Kremes! (There were two other new clubs there.) How many donuts did Sherrae have? Anybody count? Anyway, our first race was Race #5, and we discovered two things: Summer makes a good start dog (.077 right away), and Kismet doesn't like box judges who wear sleeping bags. Okay, fine, let's run Griff for awhile; no problem, 22.334! Oh, well, Griff always starts that very first heat with a bang. The next set of races was against Amy & Katy and the Duke City Chile Dogs, and so we both got to experience what came next. Okay, their dog did interfere first, but then the next two heats had interference from outside dogs! We ran five times trying to complete those three races! And even Tipper's hairy eyeball couldn't keep those puppies from wandering in (no, not Buster!). Finally, to everyone's relief (especially Dave & Doug, the judges), we got through the races with just team dogs out there. Katy's blistering speed did take one from us, though (please come back, Amy!).

Unsurprisingly, after all the interferences in the races before, Joey's left lane superstitions returned, so we saved him for the right lane races. Good thing Daphne and Jazmine were doing so well! Jaz proved her steadily declining practice times were no fluke, and ran around 5.5 all weekend. That's a lot faster than the 7s she was running in October; all that box work paid off! By the end of the day, we were still racing well (and fast), but the division was pretty open. Five of the eight teams were all within 1 point of each other, and everyone had one more race. We won 2 out of 3 in our last race, but missed some of the other racing, so we didn't know who'd won. The awards were ready as soon as the last race was over, and we'd won! We got a cool giggly toy, celebrated a little, and then headed for the Tequila Bar at Boulder Station (because it was warm)!

Sunday was cold (surprised?) and our racing was really spread out. We had some time to socialize our puppies at the dog park next to us, and it didn't seem quite as cold as before. With a breakout .5 seconds slower than our fastest time yesterday, we decided to try some alternative lineups. We knew we couldn't run Kismet until the other dogs slowed down (we thought), so Griff ran a lot. We ran our first heat with Summer, Tipper, Jazmine, and Griff, won, but then hands up, breakout! Or was it? Breakout was 22.7, Nicque signaled to me we'd run that, and Doug May got called to the Scorers' Table. It turned out that we'd actually run 22.708, and technically breakout was 22.700, so we were okay! Yikes! We found out that if we had an early pass, we didn't breakout, but we didn't win either, so it took us awhile to settle into regular racing without worrying about being too fast. We hadn't run faster than 23 seconds in practice in months, so who knew??

We raced well the rest of the day, and our schedule was open enough we got to watch and cheer for our friends on the other teams. We even got to see Touch'N Go's height dog team, Size Doesn't Matter, win Division 3with times in the low 21s! Pretty good for three JRTs and a Border-Border! It inspired us to run our height dog line-up with both Griff and Kismet, so we slowed all the way down to 23.6. We had the very last race of the day, and we went into it tied with our opponent, Flying Colors Company B. Whoever won these heats would win Division 6.

In the first heat, their anchor dog finished in our lane, so we won through interference. I had asked Nicque to watch for our time, and she said no problem, 24 seconds. Okay, let's tighten up those passes and the start, shall we? We ran the next heat, we barely win, but no, hand's up, both teams breakout!! Don't ask me how we went from 24 to 21.567, our passes weren't that bad before! I tried to move Summer back, but she wanted to race that other dog, so we broke out again! And, since Flying Colors had broken out earlier in the day, both teams now had two breakouts. And it was 1-1, with one more heat. I was hyperventilating, realizing that if I didn't think of something, we may as well have gone home yesterday! I moved Summer back 15 feet, to 52, and told Steve (with Joey at anchor) that if Summer nailed the start anyway, he would have to pull his pass. Summer hit .4, not enough, so I ran to Steve and asked him to pull Joey back to a 10 foot pass. It was closer to five feet, but Joey was two jumps behind their JRT, until Joey realized he was losing! He poured it on, and got ahead of their little dog just in time! We won the race, but everyone turned to the Scorer's Table first... 23.045! We made it! Thanks to Steve for pulling the pass just enough, and thanks to Joey for winning the race! We won cute little hairy toys, then off to the Sahara to ride Speed!

We had a great finish to a great weekend. We really liked the one ring format, since we could see all the action. And we didn't miss any "frills" in this No-Frills tournament. Our thanks to Touch'N Go for making Bay Racers's first tournament a blast!

Stats and Points

Detailed Points and Stats (Microsoft Excel format)

Saturday

Sunday

Photos

Pictures Daphne took

Here we are, our first tournament! (left to right: Diana, Nicque, Daphne, Dawn, Lauren, Steve, Ken, Joyce, Kismet, Jeanine, Sherrae, and Shelley)

Sherrae with our first prize toys!

Sunday's winning team (left to right: Dawn & Griff, Joyce & Kismet, Ken, Daphne & Jazmine, Shelley & camera, Nicque, Steve & Joey, Jeanine & friend, Lauren & Tipper, Diana & clipboard, Sherrae & Summer)

Heats Run, Averages, Best Time, and Starts include No Finishes, Break Outs, and Interferences
Points are unofficial, to be confirmed by NAFA