Micah's CalCup Perspective

After a great  Ronstan Bridge to Bridge race I was fired up to do some racing with all the locals at Coyote Point for the final CalCup of the year.  Steve cooked me an excellent breakfast of waffles at his house, and to his credit he ate the same number as me 6, then we were on the road to Coyote to get set up for the days racing.

From what I gathered the CalCup is a group of locals that get together to race just because they love racing, there is not an elaborate race crew but the racing was as well organized as any I have done this year any where.  Mike Percy donates his boat and time by getting to the site early and setting up the race course, while what I am guessing is his son and some of his buddies sit out on the boat all day doing the timing and finishes.  Steve and Mike handled the skippers’ meeting at the same time they were getting ready to race.  So big thanks goes out to these guys for letting me come and race with them.

It was looking pretty light from the beach but everyone said it would pick up, they were right.  I started out on a 10.9 and was a little overpowered but I figured I better not whine because Steve was on the same size as me and finished not to far behind me and Rob Hartman.  These guys are serious, after barely enough time to come to the beach and change to a different 10.9 we were starting again.  I had a horrible start and had to tack off, when I got to the top mark I was about 20 seconds behind Rob, what was I saying about these guys being serious.  After working my ass off on the downwind I just squeaked in front of Rob at the line.  The wind had increased even more so I came in and put up my 9.8, again barely making it back out to the line for the third race. 

After the third race I only had time for one more race as I had to be back at SJC by 5:30 to check in for my flight back to Maui.  The boys did one more race making it a total of 5 for the day, all in about 3.5 hours. Damn impressive and efficient.  I was all packed up and was only able to say thanks and goodbyes before hitting the freeway, so I wasn’t able to stay and find out the results.  I was just glad to do some racing, for me it was good preparation for my trip to Sylt and the World Championships, get some colder weather than Maui and some competitive racing.

Anyone looking to do some well organized, low stress racing I would recommend going to San Fran and checking out the CalCups.  Thanks to all the racers for putting up with me and thanks to Steve for putting me up!

-Micah Buzianis