yearbook

San Francisco (Lake Merced) | Sept 29-30

Squad Division Place
 
Rec A Mixed 4th (2:11.21)
Intl Championship 3rd (2:19.41)
Mens Preliminary 3 2nd (2:13.40)
Womens Preliminary 3 2nd (2:37.86)

The race board for the Open and Women's races were brutal. The men's and women's races had three preliminary rounds. You had to place 1st to move on with one wild card.

Our warm up routines used to be almost magical in their abilty to draw a crowd. There was a physical poetry as we moved through the positions forming human mandalas on the grass.

Some of these photos were used for banquet awards at the end of the year. I recall one image Leon manipulated to look like the person was skydiving -- it was beautiful. Sometimes I miss these stretches . . .

Lake Merced was a very green venue. A vast departure from the asphalt and concrete from the Long Beach Marine Stadium. There was a short stretch of sandy beach from which you could watch the races. It was a very mellow race locale, and had some massage tents and a local restaurant/bar that Eddy promptly took a liking to.

Our team was still in recreational size -- in the mid 30s. Some of us wanted so bad to race more competitively but it just isn't feasible in a team fielding one boat and while we faired okay in the races, it was clear that not everyone had the competitive drive to train non-stop. It was a delicate balancing act for this year as the officers balanced the divergent needs of competitive and recreational paddlers.

We ate well, played with Petey (I miss that dog) and learned much from this race. It was the closing race for the season and afterwards we launched a ferocious effort in expanding the team so that we could accomodate both types of racers.

Kenny (2010)


Women

Chantha Seng
Courtney White
Jane Sulahian
Karen Cheng
Kim George
Laura Messerschmitt
Lisa Feng
Sharon Beall
Vi Huynh
Wynne Wong

Men

Arthur Yeh
Brentin Powels
Cory Chhiap
Henry Kim
Jason Cheng
Justin Powels
Kenny Kim
Kenny Phillips
Leon Cheng
Mark Feng
Max Kiert
Nick Wang
Phillip Olive
Rob Rhew
Scott Wu
Los Angeles Racing Dragons Foundation

©2024 Los Angeles Racing Dragons Foundation