Hi Jim -

I just wanted to write and let you know we're sorry you didn't have a good time this last weekend. That's a bummer. Obviously, that's nothing I can speak to, however, I would like to set the record straight on a couple of issues:

* It's unfortunate that you felt that racing the time trials in order to qualify for the Green Truss section wasn't fair. This is exactly how the previous incarnation of Gorge Games was run and this is how it was stated on the event page at GorgeGames.net.

* We narrowed the field from 23 to 15 + the 2 qualifying ladies (for a total of 17). Once you exclude the 4 juniors - who weren't eligable to run the Green Truss section - we only eliminated a few guys from the field.

* We were given the timing system a couple days ahead of time and hiked into a gorge twice to test it thoroughly - included sending some boaters through - and we had no issues. Because we have real jobs, however, these tests were conducted in the afternoon. Friday morning's bright sun threw the electronic eye off and, unfortunately, it delayed the start by an hour. We were obviously bummed some competitors (not "over half") had to take re-runs and we apologize to those folks. We learned our lesson and had manual backup for Saturday and - obviously - will next year.

* The format was heats of three with 2 advancing.

* I wish you'd been around to help us out with the decision on that incident. We had a 50/50 split from unbiased observers who were located at the halfway point, where the incident occurred, on whether the boater in the orange boat was intentional in his pushing or was simply avoiding hitting the guy with his paddle. The replay footage/pictures was inconclusive. I made the call to re-run the heat after all paddlers involved agreed that was the most fair option. Since the paddler that came in first in the initial heat came in last in the re-run and we had the top two advancing, we allowed all three paddlers to advance.

* We don't own any portion of the HR paddlers kayak school.

Once again, I'm sorry you didn't have good time. There was a lot of time and effort put into ensuring that you and every other spectator, participant & volunteer did. We'll shoot to do better next year & we hope to add you to the team of volunteers that worked hard this year to pull off the '08 Gorge Games.

Thanks.

Jenn Hart

p.s. sinceuwas - thanks so much. and to any of the competitors who might come across this - you guys made this a great event - thanks so much for coming out.