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Summary and full results of the first event of the IR Triple Crown held at Rock Island March 31 2001 - April 1 2001. [ There is a rather big table so wait a bit for it to download ...]

MTI Rock Island RAGE

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2001

The first event of the IR Triple Crown got off to big start with the C-1 preliminaries. Chris Manderson, last year's IR Rock Island champion, made a strong showing with a flurry of clean ends and vertical splitwheels.

Following Chris, Brian Miller false started out of the river left, cave eddy. Although Brian was not scored for his ride, he provided a glimpse into the future of freestyle with a sky-high offside aerial blunt.

Scott McKleskey, a veteran of the World Slalom tour, threw down in his Dagger Ultrafuge to take top spot in the C-1 prelims.

Next up, the pro women hit the hole throwing ends with amazing verticality. Erica Mitchell took the top seed with a highly technical ride containing a combination of variety moves not often seen in the womens¹ competition.

Andre Spino-Smith, paddling for Lunch Video Magazine, IR and Necky kayaks, regulated the junior preliminaries with the precision of the doctor he is. Andre's scores for Saturday were the highest of the MTI Rock Island Rage prelims, justifying the freshly minted Spino signature t-shirt from Immersion Research.

In the men's prelim, Team Wavesport paddler Billy Craig busted out a huge Aerial Blunt on the left-hand shoulder, firmly putting him in second place. Brian Kirk, also a team Wavesport member, anhilated the prelim competition with a showing of technical domination.

MTI Rock Island RAGE - Finals

APRIL FOOLS' DAY, 2001

Despite the highly competitive C-1 class, Brian Miller, of team Lunch Video Magazine, sent Oem all home as he cashed in his frequent flier miles on both green shoulders of the hole. Miller hit a double air blunt in one round of the finals elimination, then came back with a cross grain left aerial on the right shoulder (an almost unheard of manuver). As if all that airtime didn¹t count, Brian Miller proceeded to launch himself into the IR Big Gun Show with one of the highest, most defined aerials in the history of competitive freestyle kayaking.

Not to be out done by the C-1 class, the final junior competitors racked up scores that embarassed many pro men. Team Wavesport member, Calef Letorney proved that consistent and precise, vertically mobatic rides were the ticket to dominating the junior class.

The numbers in Vegas showed Tanya Shuman, of Smiley's Nose Plugs, as the favored female competitor at the MTI Rock Island RAGE.

The numbers are rarely wrong...

As the sun slipped behind the Caney Fork falls the mens' pro finals were just warming up.

Bryan Kirk, a Palm Team member, dominated every round of elimination till the end. Andrew Holcombe, a neighbor of Bryan's in Blacksburg, VA, rolled the dice big time and threw a dynamic tricky-woo at the entrance of his third elimination ride.

True to form, Eric Jackson showed the audience why he is the Pre-World Champion. Top three found E.J, Andrew and Bryan battling to the death. E.J. managed to throw vertical cleans, blunts and splits for 45 seconds and never scored the cartwheel variety. In the end, the mature style of Eric Jackson outlived the wild snap of the Mens¹ pro young guns.

Penstock Productions would like to thank MTI, Immersion Research, Necky, Fat Eddy's, Watershed, Paddler Magazine, Pyranha, SHRED READY helmets, osmkayaks.com, Rock Creek Outfitters, and last but not least Craig Heflin's GoKayak.com.

Full Results

K1 Men

K1 Women

C1 Men

K1 Junior Men

K1 Junior Women

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