row2k Features
Burgers, the Band, and Newbies on the Bridge: The Princeton Chase
October 29, 2007
Ed Hewitt, row2k.com

Bright skies and sharp coxing at the Princeton Chase

A day after storms hauled through the region, The Princeton Chase went off without a hitch on Sunday. Even the remnant insistent Northwest wind barely touched down on Lake Carnegie, and while it may have been tough to get the blades to the water during the ? mile straightaway before the last turn to the finish line, the water remained nearly flat for most of the racing. The final 3:30 women's four got a little taste of rough water for the first mile and a half

Back on the shore, hospitality tents replete with school names and heaps of food. The Princeton band showed up in their gnarly orange suits to play "Tequila," fight songs, and oompa tunes (and ultimately to wipe out the hamburger supply at the CLRA-sponsored food tent); even the Princeton Tiger mascot showed up to perform the standard mime-like gestures and photo ops. In all another great fall Sunday at the Chase, a regatta established by Larry Gluckman when he helmed the Princeton men's squad, and still run (with the reliable assistance of USRowing Club of the Year Carnegie Lakers - we gotta give them their full 15 minutes) in the same stripped-down, get the important things right fashion set up at the beginning.

Out on the lake, crews navigated a brisk cross-tailwind for half the course only to have the mid-course 90-turn produce a brisk cross-headwind in about 10 strokes time; most crews handled the change in conditions very well and barreled into the headwind with a loss of only a beat or so on the wheels.

The format encourages two races for each athlete; three eights events (open men, light men, women) are followed by a break that allows crews to regroup and reboat into fours in the same categories - with a Small Boats free-for-all event of men's and women's singles, pairs, and doubles thrown in as the penultimate event. From pairs that appeared to include the top two members of a couple programs to a novice sculler racing an open-water shell (and pulling it along just fine), the event takes all kinds.

The order of racing was Light Men, Heavy Men, Women - and the lightweights got things off to a promising start as Navy, Cornell and Princeton finished within one second of each other, in that order - what is this, the Eastern Sprints?? The Princeton men opened up a nice margin in the heavy men's eight, with Yale 10 seconds back, BU and Columbia a tenth apart another 10 seconds back, and then a thick pack of crews behind them, with 11 crews spread over 11 seconds to round out the top fifteen spots. In the women's eight, defending national champ Yale topped Virginia by five seconds to win the race, but it was Virginia's extraordinarily depth that caught the eye of many observers, with two crews in the top three, and three crews in the top six.

In the fours, the Princeton heavy men repeated, and the Princeton light men and open women joined them atop their respective fields, the women by a fair spot; not all crews returned for the fours racing, opting for a one-and-done run in the eights.

In the Small Boats, the winning light men's double would have placed sixth in the light men's four at 15:21; the spread in the event was formidable, with the final time clocking at 23:42 - owwww. A few crews got into the spirit of the upcoming holiday with some costume-wear - anyone know the significance of the cut-off shirts reading "London Broyel?" Anyway, amusing enough. I'm not sure the Dartmouth lightweight with the zipper shirt open for both the eight and four race was doing a Halloween thing, but it was noticed on the bridges anyway.

And bridge-dwellers were treated to a lot of suspense but little carnage as the crews went through the racing arch; about 300 meters from the bridge, there was a true five-across scenario in the heavy men's four, but two crews saw how things might develop and put the hammer down, changing a potential suicide squeeze into a routine pass by the time they reached the bridge.

Fall is for Newbies
To fill the gap created by the recent elimination of frosh eights from the Youth category per NCAA rules, the race organizers invited a few men's frosh crews to race in the open eights race this year. (The women did not follow suit due to their different rules with respect to freshmen - unlike the men's programs, women frosh can row in varsity crews.) The presence of a couple alum boats in the event created a bit of instant intrigue on the water - with Princeton frosh coach Marty Crotty in the two-seat of a Fat Cat alum boat, he was racing against his own squad in their first race of the year.

You knew something was up when the frosh came down the course - they were throwing in strokes and throwing themselves at the oar handles into the big headwind; this was a crew on a mission. The nemesis Fat Cat boat was mostly a "don't you know who we were?!?" crew, with a couple still-are guys and a flash of Olympians, National Teamers, and Boat Race guff types (maybe something of a C.L.A.S.H.-B. crew if you follow these things), so to even things up it seems that Crotty took things into his own hands - or let them get out of his hands, as the case may be. Although the row2k camera failed to capture the evidence, Crotty tossed an over-the-header into the mix. His effort was a bit too well-executed, as his frosh beat the Fat Cats by less than one second.

6 Princeton C Frosh 13:29.613
7 Fat Cat 13:30.474

It's still not a bad showing for the Fat Cats - they placed seventh overall with a major crab event; more like a great showing for a frosh crew.

The bridges offered up lots of newbie comments; some quick examples: "How did they end up all in single file? They must be really fast." Explanation of the racing method of head-style events follows. "They can't start them all together? They must be way faster than the races on the Cooper River then. They must be really fast."

"What on earth does the person lying down in the front of the boat do?"

"Why does that person keep swerving back and forth? You'd think a college kid would know a straight line is the shortest distance between two points."

"The guy with the mustache looks like Borat. (with accent) Niiiice."

Hear any good newbie observations this fall? Send them and I'll gather them up into one place if we have enough quality comments.

So ends the Princeton Chase, a regatta established and run by coaches for athletes - little wonder it comes off so well every year.

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