Mahalo to all that came out to the 16th Annual Tony Gora Memorial Race out of Santa Cruz. Before the race I had the chance to ask Linda Dresbach of PuPu O' Hawai'i a couple of questions about this great race. In the future we plan to add video interview but for now you all are just going to have to deal with my typing. =)
Me: Ok Linda I'm not a journalism major by any means so we are just going to wing it. So why do they call the race the Tony Gora Memorial Race?
Linda: Tony Gora was a member of Pu Pu O Hawaii who grew up in Honolulu. He was the mayor of Galt and came down to the ocean to paddle with a senior master (45+) men's crew who purchased the Team ONeill Force 5 Canoe around 1994 (Dave Dyc would know the date). He had breast cancer in the early '90's and it recurred in 2001 and he passed away around his 61st birthday in January 2002, he had planned to run the Honolulu Marathon that prior December with his high school buddies. He had great enthusiasm for the sport and was a great supporter of the club
Me: How many paddlers will we have out on the water for the race?
Linda: Looks like 39 crews so @ 234 paddlers! A very good turn out.
Me: What is the best thing about this course?
Linda: This is one of the only summer ocean races for NCOCA as many are on San Francisco Bay. The ocean gives everyone a great experience on the open ocean with some protection of Monterey Bay. The ocean swell, tides and winds are very different than on SF Bay.
Me: How challenging is it to put together a event like this?
Linda: Working from our home practice site makes this event much easier to host than most. We also have this distance race incorporated with the Sunday Aloha Day event so Parks & Rec as well as ONeill , our sponsor, help out with advertising, art work for the event logo and ONeill provides the tshirt printing for us. It helps to have people like Dave Dyc, club member, who lives within walking distance of the harbor and is an old friend of Jack ONeill.
Me: Speaking of challenging events you along with others from the NCOCA helped organize this years 2008 IVF World Sprints. How was it?
Linda: The World Sprints came off great with alot of hard work by a small group of people. We had over 1300 racing paddlers from around the world and they all had a good time and an excellent race course. The various countries participating contributed officials to the event so there was an international flavor to the entire event.
Mahalo Linda once again!
The story of the day was He'e Nalu of Marin 19yr Under Boys setting the pace and finishing 7.4 Mile course 1st overall with a time of 1:04:2 Great job guys! For race results go HERE .
(Picture courtesy Corrie from Akau Hana Outrigger Club)
Comments