2009 FH World Championship results - Page 4

To answer an earlier post, another way that I have seen used to get people to the tracking fields was using a bus, or in this case several busses.  I was one of the team captains for our IPO team last year in Belgium.  EVERYONE, including the dog handlers and their dogs rode the bus to tracking.  This was actually a pretty well run system.  I think 3 big Greyhound style buses were used and meeting points were layed out well ahead of time.  These busses all started and returned to the stadium.  So When one flight and spectators were heading out, another group was coming back.  There were also meeting places along the way in case people wanted to watch several flights before they returned to the stadium.  One person riding each bus was keeping a list, and sharing it with the other busses as to if competitors were getting rides back to the stadium as well.  This way even a competitor could watch a few tracks in another flight if they choose to do so.

The handler had an option of letting the dog ride loose next to him/her on the bus or be in a crate below.  It wasn't that hard to make things work, but we did have to be thinking a little as we didn't want to have a bad experience either before or after tracking.  As an example, Mark S and Joker rode inside the bus, and Dean Calderon, and myself just walked ahead and behind making sure no one bothered either one.  I think some of us were really suprized by how some other world level competitors had no real regard for others' dogs, but that's another topic.

We are actually exploring the bus thing for the 2009 USA national championship.  It's hard to keep people that are not familiar with the area from getting lost sometimes in very rural areas.  At times there are no road signs, or you are actually having to drive into a farmers property on his personal farm roads.

Jeff is right about the people pulling for you as well.  I had the chance to make a lot of new friends in France, just from people coming up to me to let me know they know exactly how I was feeling.

Al Govednik