A Machine With Two Pistons

I asked Jerry and Luc how they managed to win the 1972 race by a half-hour margin. They admitted that they sprinted for the first eight hours until they were sure no one could catch them. Sprinting is anything over 70 strokes a minute. Robillard added with a grin that they were like a "machine with two pistons." In addition to a lot of paddling, Robillard runs up to 60 miles a week to get ready for a race. Good wind is essential. The portages over the six dams are made at a dead run by all the teams.

There was some uneasiness over the idea that for the first time in the history of the race two women, Donna Buckley and Truda Gilbert, who resolutely denied any Women's Lib motivation, had been allowed to enter. I was assured by many that they would never make the finish line, which didn't seem surprising as often fewer than a third of the teams reach Oscoda. Aside from being pretty and well built, they both were in top shape. They readily took the bet for a bottle of champagne when Ed Adams said they would never reach Mio, just short of the halfway point. I tended to agree with Adams, who seemed knowledgeable about endurance, having won in the past a Texas race that took over 60 hours. How does one stay awake that long, let alone paddle?

The bar gradually cleared until the only racer left was Jay Stephan, a fishing guide and construction worker. Jay's father had won the race three times and is a well-known trout guide and builder of boats. On being pushed, Jay said he doubted he had a chance though his close knowledge of the river was an advantage. Jay wears his hair shoulder length in a ponytail, so taking an obvious cue I asked him if any of the racers used drugs for energy, say speed in any of its forms. He said he had never heard of it. The race is simply too long, at least 15 hours of hard paddling, hardly to be compared with the 60 minutes of action football players have when they might, safely or not, use uppers.

The day of the race proved to be humid and cloudy with the threat of rain. The racers were happy about the weather—rain would raise the river level and make the water faster. I talked at length with Norm Brown and Bill Staples, who are both former competitors and the judges of the race this year. Part of their job is to make sure the racers don't cheat by portaging across some of the thin, elongated bends in the river, a rare though possible tactic. Staples marked on my program the top six finishers and he proved to be accurate. Both Staples and Brown were pessimistic about any increase in the popularity of the sport. It is simply too grueling with the years of competition, training and practice necessary to build a winner. There are no accidental or surprise winners on the pro circuit.

Late in the afternoon Brown and Staples were busy checking the canoes, measuring them to make sure they conform to rigid rules on length and minimum beam. The competitors were making extraordinary efforts to appear relaxed though it was obvious that a single misplaced firecracker could blow the whole race. I talked to a number of wives who were busy preparing the food that resembled that used by the astronauts. Tubes. Plastic containers of nutrient supplement. Hot broth and heavily sugared tea. Gatorade. Bottles of honey, mixed with milk or straight. Everyone was hip to the energy bit. (A few years back ripe olives were declared to be some ultimate energy source and many racers used them.) Long tubes are connected to gallons of Kool-Aid so the racer can suck directly without missing a stroke. The wives or friends who act as "bank runners" have to wade into the river to hand over the food without slowing down the canoe. Later in the race it is thrown into the canoes at the dam portages.

I sought out a favored racer named John Buckley, whose wife Donna is half of the female team. He had been variously described in terms that boiled down to one mean-minded ogre and I wanted to catch the act in person. Surprise. He's a graduate student working on a degree in speech therapy. Maybe a trifle arrogant but soft-spoken and absurdly muscled. Whatever his faults might be you perceive that part of the tension is that Buckley is a "college man" among members of the working class, still a viable separation in parts of the country. Until a few weeks before, Buckley had formed a winning combination with Jeff Kellogg. Then they hit a buoy up in Flin Flon, Manitoba and sank. They had an argument while swimming around and that broke up the team. Many wonder why the Kellogg brothers don't race together but the sport is too volatile for the close quarters of a brother combination. Among the top pros, however small the purses, partners are traded back and forth under the pressure of the anger caused by exhaustion. The AuSable Marathon is the Indianapolis 500 of canoe racing and it means no less to these people than the auto race does to the Unser brothers.

All of my doubts about the validity and interest of the sport are being dispelled as the starting time nears with evening. There's a palpable tension and excitement in the air, no doubt caused by the insanity of trying to paddle that far without stopping. And at maximum speed. The racers are now worried about the fog that often hugs the river valley, the worst thing that could happen to the weather. The small lights mounted on the bows can't penetrate fog and a racing canoe is easily stove in by a deadhead or punctured by a branch. Al Robinson has a glazed, pinched look about him as if he had been condemned to the poleax. The women are getting a lot of nervous and not very good-natured ribbing. Luc Robillard and Jerry Kellogg are leaning against a car hood. They admit to dreading the pain and a long lonely stretch of water on the other side of Mio that comes before dawn when their natural body cycles are at their lowest ebb. But they are laughing and joking and their supreme confidence doesn't seem to lessen the nervousness of the others.

Back to the start, so short and violent that the neophyte viewer scarcely has any idea what has happened. The cheering dies and Jerry Chiapetta, an outdoors writer turned television personality, clambers out of the water with a big movie camera. It seemed to me he had been taking his life in his hands. I had been warned to stand well back at portages because the racers in an advanced state of exhaustion don't see well and tend to bowl over spectators. We joined several hundred cars following the canoeists downriver to watch from a dozen vantage points. I was tired but figured if Verlin Kruger at 50 could paddle all night, at 35 I could manage to keep my eyes open that long.

The first stop was Burton's Landing, about 40 minutes downstream for the racers. A large crowd was milling about in the dark at the river's edge. It is bad form to shine a flashlight directly at the oncoming canoe because it blinds the paddlers to any logs or obstructions in the water. A small light became visible upstream and the people began cheering. The canoe was quickly broadside to us and flashlights were turned on. Luc and Jerry. You could hear them huffing and then one would yell "hut," which signaled a switch in the side they were paddling on. They were sprinting at 75 strokes a minute, which looked eerie and violent in the beams of dozens of flashlights. John Buckley and Stan Hall appeared in the second canoe four minutes later. A four-minute lead in the first 45 minutes. Al Robinson and Jeff Kellogg were running third. The favorites had established their position.

The night became a jumble of stops at different bridges. Two hours into the race Luc and Jerry had further lengthened their lead and the first six canoes were well ahead of the pack. The crowd kept wondering what had happened to the women but would surge on to the next bridge in order to catch the leaders. Verlin Kruger was running about ninth but I had been advised that Verlin grows stronger as the race progresses and that he was likely to improve his position in the early morning hours.