Stampede By Connie Barlow
This was such a terrific tournament... It's gonna be hard to hit all the high points
I want to congratulate Sushi for her record setting run of 5.212. (The standing record time for a Corgi in singles is 5.238). This has been Shelley's goal since she started training Sushi. We all were out there cheering her and calling for her. She ran her record time in her bad lane even! When the time flashed we all cheered... even folks from other teams when they realized what she'd accomplished.

Tulsa and Tam were fantastic. In heat 3 of Tulsa's second race she ran a 4.193.. with the reaction time of .132 subtracted out her completion time was 4.06. That is unbelievable for her first tournament. Dogs will usually get even faster as they gain confidence and get used to racing. She attracted a lot of attention from competitor teams. It was so great to see her do so well.

So many dogs ran their personal bests. Lil Jack ran a 4.186... the reaction time was nearly a triple zero... -.001. He ran starts all weekend long for the team, held up with out errors and didn't do any "evil eyeing" on Roo

Crazy Jack was nailing his passes with Nikki and ran his personal best of 4.527. Excellent dog handling on Eric's part since Nikki was ball bobbling often.

Roo got in there with the pack and ran fantastic as dog #2. Casey got great coaching from Sierra on passing into Lil Jack and by the end of the weekend was nailing passes. He ran a 4.57 best time. Roo's box turn can be much better and that will speed him up considerably as well as be better for his body in the long run.

Snaz & Scooter ... well they fall into the category of dogs we love that also play flyball. Snaz & Scooter together clocked a time in pairs that approached the world record (for a 4 dog team). both ran their races with no errors, were so very proud of themselves and were having a ball.

Dyno even got out there and raced a few heats on sunday. You'd never know she had 8 stitches and been through such a trial earlier in the week. She was most annoyed at her captain for only letting her run 2 heats of a 4 heat race, but her captain thought it be best not to push it....

The team did so much better than I expected on Saturday. I estimated the best time possible for the line up to be 19.6, but with Lil Jack, Roo and Crazy Jack running faster than ever and when Roo got to the point that he could take a 2 foot pass from Nikki the team clocked an 18.30. We couldn't catch Fly N Aces on Saturday, but 2nd was better than I ever expected considering we were seeded 1.6 seconds slower than our competition.

On sunday we went out ran clean nearly every race (we only had 4 errors all day) That gave us solid first place. Man that was so sweet. I was so proud of all of you

I also appreciated how everyone pitched in at race time and was where the team needed them to be. The time in the crating area was a blast too. thanks Bettina and Dave for the warm, yummy soup it so hit the spot in the chilly, damp weather. I thought crating indoors would be rough on the dogs, but we were far enough away that they did relax. it was tight quarters for sure, but we did fine. all of you lined up with your laptops were a hoot. Shelley sorta working tracking her plane, Sierra sorta studying, Dave doing his video magic and Leo... Leo what were you doing? ... oh yeah watching YouTube. Watching you guys play hacky-sack was great entertainment... Todd you started a tradition when you brought your hacky sack last year. Then there was Eric with his "holy" pants and Connie with her "flower measles". We also know why Sierra and Darren always sleep at the tournament site... that way they can't be late for racing .... BTW, someone needs to get Casey some dog leashes and a watch. boy, you gave me a coronary on sunday morning.

Connie