Holeshot Racers Flyball

Well, what can we say? CanAm 2013 was everything we could have hoped for and more!!

 

We would like to start off by thanking NAFA and our elected Board Members who make this incredible tournament such a success every year, and for making our first appearance at CanAm an unforgettable memory.

 

We would also like to thank our sponsors for all the support we received in preparing for this journey. Thank you so much to Walter Boni and Associates from RE/MAX Executives Realty, Baldwin Feeds Perfectly Raw, and Manitoba's CARSTAR Collision and Glass Service!!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our journey to CanAm 2013 began with 6 people and 17 dogs loading up into two mini vans on Wed Oct 16 and setting off to Tomah, Wisconsin at 7am.  This was the first leg of our journey.  We had booked ourselves into the Best Western in Tomah and when we arrived late in the evening we were absolutely amazed at this hotel!!  The Best Western in Tomah is most definitely a well kept secret!! This hotel had amazing rooms with the most comfortable beds you have ever slept in, beautiful bathrooms with showers that had amazing water pressure, and what makes this hotel such a gem is the dog park that is fully enclosed within the building!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was wonderful to be able to take all the dogs to the park to run around a bit and stretch their legs after a long drive!! The dog park has a dog house, a couple decorative fire hydrants and a poop bag/garbage station available right on site!!  The dogs absolutely loved being able to get some exercise before curling up on the amazing beds in the rooms! The hotel also offers a pool, gym and complimentary breakfast provided by the Perkins that is attached to the hotel!  We felt like royalty when we stayed at this incredible hotel and certainly recommend it to any of our friends who intend on making the drive to Indianapolis next year! It is worth the stop!!  Thank you Best Western and staff for the wonderful stay!!

 

Early the next morning after a delicious breakfast we hit the road on the final leg of our journey to Indianpolis! Wisconsin is certainly a beautiful state to drive through.  Beautiful hues of red, orange, yellow and green lined our path to Illinois.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we passed through Illinois, bypassing Chicago's rush hour, we finally made it to the state of Indiana.  When we saw the sign we started to get excited! We were almost there!  We got ourselves settled into our hotel and let the dogs have a stretch and an early supper before heading off to the tournament site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we arrived at the site we were a little overwhelmed with the size of the event and were amazed at the number of rings that would be running simultaneously! We couldn't imagine all the work that went into organizing this event.  We got ourselves settled into our crating area and took some time to wander around and take in everything.  We got quiet excited once we saw all the vendors that were sure to have some awesome products to sell over the next few days!!

 

Saturday was an exciting day!! We were a little bit nervours but quickly settled into a groove! Saturday was the day that our top team had to pull off a fast time in order to be invited to the Invitational Tournament on Sunday.  Only the top eight teams are invited into the Invitational.ftr 

 

We feel that we came out with quite the bang! All day we ran consistent 15.2s-15.3s with our top line-up and we couldn't have been prouder of the dogs on our top team as they are all still fairly green! Our second regular team and our open team both ran well in their races for the day and we really enjoyed running with Arlene and Len from Can-do Agility Team, another team from Manitoba.

 

At the end of the day we learned that not only did we get the time we needed to be invited to the Invitational Tournament the following day, but we had also pulled off winning Division 1! This was very exciting for us as we had come to CanAm with no expectations! We celebrated and looked forward to another amazing day on Sunday!!

 

Sunday was a fairly nerve racking day as our top team wouldn't begin racing til later in the day! We waited all day for our first race as part of the CanAm Invitational.  We stuck together as a team and encouraged the handlers of our top line-up and were thrilled that both Rocket Relay and Spring Loaded were willing to offer us advice and encourage us as we entered our first race of the day!

 

We ran fast and clean and made it through our first race! We were absolutely ecstatic! We were going to the next round!!  The next round would be against the World Record Team, Spring Loaded!! We knew that all we could do was run fast and clean and hope that they were flagged for something!! 

 

It was a great race and we feel that we made Spring Loaded push to get by us! It was an honor to race an incredible team and were amazed at the speed of their dogs.  Though we lost, this was not the end of the road for our team.  Now we had to go on to the Semi-Finals against Animal Inn!  

 

We were very excited to run against Animal Inn as it would be a face-off between siblings! Beeline and Bangher are sister and brother to Bonkers, Throttle and Epic on Animal Inn's top line-up! How exciting this would be to have these sibling Border x Whippets go head to head in the Semi-Finals of the biggest tournament of the year!!

 

We raced fast and clean, however we sadly lost in the 4th heat by .012!! So close!

 

We would like to congratulate Animal Inn on their success and specifically want to recognize how amazing their height dog, little Vimy, performed as a very green height dog at CanAm!!  What an amazing little dog she is!! a 3.9 height dog that sets 7 inch jumps is not very common.  That is one special girl!! 

 

Holeshot Racers would also like to make a special congrautlations to Angela Stefanec as it is pretty incredible that out of the 8 dogs in the Semi-Finals at CanAm, seven of them were from Angela's breedings!! Angela, you must be so proud of your puppies and how well they have done in the very early beginnings of their flyball careers! We know there is certainly more to come in the future!

 

Though our racing journey had ended our day at CanAm was not over yet! We were fortunate enough to be able to watch an amazing race between Spring Loaded and Rocket Relay in the CanAm Invitational Finals! What a race! It came right down to the wire and we were absolutely amazed by Guinness who came from behind and somehow pulled off the win for Spring Loaded!

 

It was a long and exciting weekend!! We would like to thank Spring Loaded and Rocket Relay for all of their support over the weekend! We would like to thank everyone else who came out and cheered for us and congratulated us on our first time running at CanAm!! We appreciate everyone's support and were shocked on how welcoming everyone was to the little team from Winnipeg, Manitoba!!

 

We value all the new friendships we made and the people that we may have known via facebook that we finally got to meet in person! 

 

It was an incredible experience and one that we will never forget!!  We are already counting down the days until CanAm 2014!!

 

We wish everyone luck for the 2014 Flyball season and hope to see you all next year at the most amazing tournament of the year!!