SOUTHERN

MICHIGAN

ORIENTEERING

CLUB

Meet location: Haven Hill

Date: October 25, 2008

Director: Rick Waldo

Weather for the Night-O looked iffy in the day or two before the event, with forecasts strongly indicating rain. I got pretty soaked walking through the fields and undergrowth in the Friday afternoon rain while putting out some of the controls. In the event, however, the weather was ideal, with temps about 50, moderate breeze, and thin overcast. No rain fell and the woods were dry.

There were many comments about the beautiful conditions for night orienteering. Although it was a new moon, the thin overcast reflected city lights from the nearby towns of Milford, Commerce, and White Lake making for a not quite pitch-dark evening. I was out a couple days later when the skies were clear, and surprisingly, the skies were actually darker due to the lack of city light reflection off the clouds. It's too bad that there is so little concern about the terrible light pollution in these semi-rural areas.

Except for the team of Barb and Scott which had to leave early, all the teams made use of nearly the entire 3 hours. I was sitting in the dark at the start with only 20 minutes to go and no one had returned or was even in sight. At that point I wondered to myself if I forgot to tell everyone that the time limit was 3 hours, and that maybe some people thought "Night-O" meant all night! Well, the first teams finally came in at 2:47 followed by a surge of finishers. No one was OT except for a trio of young scouts who ventured into the night on their own and returned a few minutes past the cutoff. Kudos to them; few young people in this day of indoor recreation (video games, aargh!) have the self-confidence for such an endeavor.

I had the participants add their scores for a preliminary ranking. This showed Brian, Chris, and Patty edging out Paul, Greg, and Pam by only 14 points. When I reviewed the scorecards, however, I found Paul's team made an addition error not in their favor. The corrected scores showed Paul's team edging out Brian's team by only 6 points. Brian Ross turned in an outstanding solo score of 1649 points. Thanks to all who came out and for your kind comments about the race.

Results:

Night-O, Score-O: 3 hour time limit, 37 controls
place     teamtimescore
1   Paul Piorkowski, Greg Gibbard, & Pam Riehl2:56:20 1861 
2   Brian Slane, Chris Westra, & Patty2:56:15 1855 
3   Brian Ross (solo)2:56:30 1649 
4   Bill Luitje (solo)2:53:15 1295 
5   Darrin Soukup & Ed Broadbear2:52:40 1289 
6   Chuck Kovic & Reno Nye2:55:00 1103 
7   5M's and a J *2:51:53 1028 
8   Dick West (solo)2:46:58 1014 
9   Marsha & Gary Harrington2:47:27 937 
10   Matt & Paul Johnson2:58:33 924 
11   Ken Cook (solo)2:57:40 910 
12   Mike Keating (solo)2:53:59 895 
13   Tom Lee (solo)2:56:45 861 
14   Dave Verschoor & Chris2:58:33 610 
15   Barb & Scott1:13:30 434 
16   Troop 547 Red Team (Jim & Frank)3:24:00 358 
17   Troop 547 Blue Team (Herbie, Kelsey, & Matt)3:24:00 194 


SMOC home page

Modified October 29, 2008, by Robert Messer.