Ragnar Relay 2009

Another year and another Ragnar Relay: Northwest Passage. This year, with some brilliant brainstorming and left over kids birthday party decorations, the name of the team was changed from Shell Shocked to Shell Sharked.

Grant's shark toss was used on top of the van, James made shirts with red 'blood' spatter and their team number: 51, and the Jaws theme was downloaded to scare the competition.

Here is Andy modeling the blood spatter shirt.

Here is a little video of the Jaws music they played when taunting the other teams. James would pull ahead of their current team runner and find the nearest competitor. Then the Shell Sharked team would call out "You are about to be Shell Sharked!" and play this music. Great fun was had by all.

The Shell Sharked van. Those are legs hanging out of the sharks mouth.

The view from the front. You may have to click on these pictures to make them bigger and see the details.
The quote of the race: "You are about to be Shell Sharked!!"
This wanted poster was from a guy on a different team from last year. James and the other team members thought this seventies porn star look was hilarious so they placed him on the back of the van as a wanted poster. They actually found his friends on leg 34 (there are only 35 legs, so it was close!), although unfortunately he wasn't racing here this year, he was doing another Ragnar, but his friends thought the story was hilarious, so they made sure to text him and tell him what was going on.

Here is Andy ready to head out on his first run.We missed the hand off between James and Andy so we managed to catch James in route. Here he is doing his jaws impression.
The view of the van while driving down the road.
James handing off to Parrish. At this point Andy and James' first legs are done and we are finding out that one of the girls in the other van on their team got heat stroke. An ambulance had to be called and she was eventually taken home, thankfully ok. But this meant that Van 1 was short a runner and the other team members had to make up those two extra legs. Starting out there are 12 runners, divided into 2 vans, and each team member takes 3 legs of the race.
Here is Jaime modeling one of the Shell Sharked hats.
An almost complete team member shot. Missing is Kristal (who got heat stroke) and Kelly who was running at this point. This is at Coupeville High School.

This is also at the point when we find out that Andy ran an extra leg in the middle of the night and James has to run one more because Mike (far left) injured his knee and couldn't run on it at all.

What an amazing group of athletes! Two people down and they are still going strong! While Kristal recovered at home (we hope she is doing great), Mike became a support man on the team.
The hand off and Andy is on his fourth and final leg of the race.
Hand off to James and Andy is done!
Go James Go! We didn't get anymore shark demonstrations from James for the rest of the race. He looked a little tired by this point, not sure why. ;)
Here is the group at the end of the race, waiting for Sarah to arrive so they could all run in together.
Finished at last! Great job team Shell Sharked!

A victorious group!