Duluth entry hopeful for Pan Am horse competiton
Candy Barbo says that Gus, her prized Arabian gelding, is so well-mannered that anybody could ride him. But nobody does. Nobody but Candy.
“I can put a kid on him, or an 80-year-old lady, and he’d be fine with them,” said Barbo. But after the point is pressed, she adds: “I guess my husband, and our two daughters, have been on Gus, but nobody has really ridden him except me.”
Galloping up the grassy hillsides of Spirit Mountain on a 90-degree day earlier this week, the two worked out in perfect concert, the horse eager to respond to every urging of his rider, and Candy Barbo was a part of each of Gus’ powerful strides during an hour workout, something they do about six days a week.
“Gus and I have a wonderful sense of communication,” Barbo said. “I think it, and he does it. He can sense when I’m not sure of which way we should go, and he takes me the right way. Other times, he has to trust me, like when we’re going across water.”
That instinctive collaboration may come from the fact that both horse and rider share a love of competition. The result is that Candy, whose real name is Candace, and Gus, whose real name is Augustus, going to Winnipeg this weekend where they will be the lone Minnesota representatives on the U.S. team competing next weekend in the 100-mile Pan American endurance race, in conjunction with the Pan American Games.
There is no actual track, just ribbons to denote turns, and 150 entrants from all over the world will thunder away from the starting line at the 61,000-acre Spruce Woods Provincial Park, in western Maniboba, 100 miles west of Winnipeg. Riders from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Great Britain, Germany, Romania, Sweden, Australia, and the UAE will compete against Canadians and American riders.
In the U.S., endurance races of 25, 50 and 100 miles are conducted regularly on weekends throughout the country, in several regions. This one, the Upper Midwest Endurance Ride Association, governs the area from Michigan in the east, to Missouri in the south, to Montana in the west and into Manitoba in the north. It is part of the American Endurance Ride Conference, which, in turn, is part of the Federation Equestrian Internationale, which governs competition in 20 nations.
“Every other year, they hold the Pan American Games, and they have a world championship on the alternating years,” Barbo said. “We’re not funded by the Pan American Games, but we’re trying tobecome part of it, and of the Olympics. This course will be really tough, with a lot of sand dunes, and sand hills.”
Barbo’s emergence as an elite endurance racer is the reward for a late-blooming competitive urge that she had kept simmering on the back burner since her childhood, back when girls simply didn’t compete in such events.
“I was a cheerleader,” she said. “That’s all there was for girls then.”
She grew up with her parents, Horace and Gene (for Imogene) Stover, four older sisters and two brothers, in a home located right near the southwestern base of Spirit Mountain. They always had animals, and at least one of the kids always had a horse. After attending Denfeld High School, Candy went to St. Scholastica, where, in the last quarter of her senior year, one of her sisters introduced her to Ed Barbo. They were married when Candy was 22, and she envied the opportunities for boys to vent their competitive urges in sports.
Ed was a hockey goaltender at Duluth East and UMD, and was to take over the family’s Columbia Clothing business in downtown Duluth. It took some doing for Candy to convince Ed to move back to the area where she grew up, and where her brothers, sisters and a nephew all still have adjacent property, but that’s where they raised daughters Kelly, who is now 22 and studying in Minneapolis to be a veterinary technician, and Kari, 20, who attends Bemidji State. They also have a menagerie of animals, including eight horses, on their five-acre home, with five more acres up higher on the hill.
“Ed grew up in town, without animals, and I always had animals,” Candy said. “We have two dogs, lots of cats, including barn cats, and a goat, in addition to the horses.”
While their daughters were heavily into figure skating, Candy supported them, but still looked for her own outlet. “I ran in Grandma’s Marathon 15 years ago,” she said. “I finished in 4 1/2 hours, but I finished.”
She also, her sister suggests, realized it would be a lot easier to compete on horseback.
While running marathons, and riding motorcycles or racing cars, or even bicycles, have been well-known, horseback endurance races have been less publicized and comparatively unknown.
“I’ve always kind of known about it, but I was always busy with the kids,” Barbo said. “I thought, ‘Gee, that would be fun,’ but I never had time to pursue it.”
Candy and Ed got into country-western dancing a few years ago, and through that outlet, Candy heard of a man from Hayward, Wis., who was into endurance horse racing. It was Norm Cooper, who ran Cooper’s Restaurant in Hayward.
“I heard about him about six years ago,” said Barbo. “I don’t know how I ever followed up on it — I guess my 40th birthday turned me wacky — but I called him and he invited me to bring my horse and go on a ride they were having that weekend at St. Croix Park in Hinckley.
“I went, because I love to ride. Gus was 7 years old then, and we got second place. I was hooked.”
Barbo and Gus raced in three other events that year, and the next year they became regular competitors. “You can choose what distance you want to do,” she said. “We started out doing 50, and he’s done 50miles in 3 hours, 40 minutes. We’ve done a lot of 100-milers. We did one 120-miler that was 60 miles one day and 60 the next, in 10 hours, 45 minutes.”
Barbo rides Gus in about 18 events a year, in a season that goes from April through October. Since 1996, they have won 10 first-places, with the rest mostly seconds and thirds.
To reach the team for the Pan Am Games, competitors were scrutinized in various events. For Candy and Gus, qualifying events were a 50-miler in New Mexico, a 100-miler at St. Croix Park — where Gus was one of only two horses to finish — and a 50-miler in Granite Falls, Minn.
The most important thing, Candy said, was to finish. They had to finish the 100 miles in 24 hours, and in the Pan Am competition it will be reduced to 18 hours, neither of which should be a problem, because the longest it’s ever taken Gus to go that distance was 15 hours.
Veterinarians examine the horses closely at every checkpoint, and Barbo monitors Gus with a heart monitor that reads out on her wristwatch. The close scrutiny is to assure that the horses avoid risking injury. Other than having a bad shoe once, the only time Gus was pulled was in his first 100-mile event, when he stiffened after 94 miles.
“It’s harder for me to finish than for him, I think,” said Barbo. “Because I worry about everything and try to get him through.”
The team Candy will participate on is the Central U.S. team, which includes 12 riders. Four are from the Upper Midwest region, three from Illinois and Barbo. Seven are from Texas.
“Grace Ramsey of Illinois runs our team,” she said. “She plots the strategy, and she’ll watch us ride this weekend and then select four as Central team members. Three of those four have to finish for us to get a medal, based on their combined score. The rest will compete as individuals.”
At Winnipeg, men and women will compete side by side, although each horse has to carry a minimum of 165 pounds, which means Candy has to share her saddle with some sandbags. “I’m mostly worried about the starting line,” Barbo said. “Gus really gets excited about the starts.”
If the thought of competition arouses Gus, it’s just one more way that he and his rider have matching spirit.
USA Hockey snubbed for Canadian Olympic director
The U.S. has come a long way, baby, in the sport of hockey, which, to the uninitiated, is called “ice hockey.” But apparently we’ve still got a long way to go.
Consider that a staff of Canadians is in place to organize, direct and manage the hockey portion of the 2002 Winter Olympic games in Salt Lake City. That’s Salt Lake City, Utah, which, last I checked, was in the United States.
Yes, this will be the first Olympic Winter Games where the host country did not serve as host for the hockey tournament.
Those of us who have grown up in the United States enjoying hockey can understand the paranoia when it comes to Canada. It’s Canada’s game, we concede that, but we play it pretty well too. And as everybody from John Mariucci to Herb Brooks to Val Belmonte says or has said: “We’re not anti-Canadian; we’re pro-American.”
USA Hockey, which used to be the Amateur Hockey Association of the U.S. (AHAUS) until the late Bob Johnson got that awkward name changed, can be oppressive and overbearing at times in organizing and coordinating youth and amateur hockey in this country, but it has also done a fantastic job of building a sport of national interest from a cult sport that used to be isolated into small pockets of Minnesota, Michigan and New England.
In the process, hundreds of highly qualified folks have organized and coordinated every imaginable type of team, game and tournament. Historically, U.S. officials ran the hockey tournaments twice at Lake Placid and once at Squaw Valley, Calif. Canada has been host to only one Winter Olympics, in Calgary in 1988.
It is possible that the whole thing unfolded innocently. The Salt Lake City organizing committee was putting its people in place for 2002, and they were aware of a highly efficient woman named Cathy Priestner. She has long been involved with speedskating, and at one point was a director of the Center for Excellence in Calgary, a multi-sport training facility. In fact, she hired Shannon Miller to work there, and Miller later became coach of the Canadian women’s Olympic team and is the coach of UMD’s first-year women’s hockey team now. She also was there when Dan Moro was hired from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to manage the Center of Excellence.
When the organizers went to Dave Ogrean, the executive director of USA Hockey, to become the Director of Sport, Ogrean turned it down, and subsequently took a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee. So the organizers hired Cathy Priestner as Director of Sport. Priestner interviewed quite a few men for the job to direct the “ice hockey” portion of the Olympics. Val Belmonte, perhaps the best-qualified of a number of well-qualified American candidates, was among those interviewed.
But her final decision was to hire Moro. So a Canadian is Director of Sport for the Salt Lake City games, and she hires a Canadian to be director of the ice hockey tournament. Maybe there was nothing malicious or sinister in mind, just a logical decision to name Priestner, who made a logical decision to name Moro.
“They’re both wonderful people, well qualified,” said Doug Palazzari, the former Eveleth High School and Colorado College star player who, two months ago, replaced Ogrean as executive director of USA Hockey. “I didn’t know Cathy Priestner was a Canadian until she hired Dan Moro. And even though they’re both fabulous people, there are a lot of qualified Americans who could have done those jobs.
“We’ve gone through this for a long time. There’s no question that Americans in hockey are still at a disadvantage, whether it’s something like this, all the way up to the top professional coaching opportunities. We were offended, and we expressed our dissatisfaction.”
The man who expressed it was Walter Bush, the president of USA Hockey, and the vice president of the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation).
“I wrote Cathy Priestner a blistering letter,” said Bush, who just returned this week from an IIHF meeting in Switzerland. “I said in the letter that we know we’ve been Canada’s ‘little brother’ in hockey, but through all this I still couldn’t believe that she couldn’t pick an American to run the hockey tournament. She said she picked teh best person available. But she promised she’d name an American to be in charge of the women’s hockey tournament.”
She did that, naming Liz Ridley for that role.
The IIHF, Bush said, recommended Val Belmonte for the job of tournament director, but Priestner made her choice regardless.
“Because she’s not a U.S. citizen herself, maybe she wanted to hire people she felt most comfortable with,” said Belmonte. “I know it’s great to have an international flavor in the Olympics, but a lot of good U.S. candidates were bypassed. It’s not like any of us are anti-Canadian, it’s just that we’re pro-U.S. And this will be the first Winter Olympics where the host country’s hockey federation hasn’t run the hockey tournament.
“I’m sure they’re going to need a lot of volunteers, but right now, we in USA Hockey don’t have any involvement at all.”
Yes, those of us who have followed the development of hockey in the U.S. carefully over the last few decades might be paranoid. But we’ve come by our paranoia with good reason. I still have a favorite poster around somewhere that reads: “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to get you.”
BIR gets annual dose of NHRA records, highlights
BRAINERD, MINN.—The annual trek Up North by the National Hot Rod Association is over for another year, but not before leaving a string of new records and memorable performances before an estimated four-day turnout of 100,000 spectators at Brainerd International Raceway.
The 18th annual NHRA meet at BIR doesn’t mean summer is over, or even that the regional motorsports season is over — not with season championships at various Up North dirt tracks this weekend. But the magnitude of the NHRA show makes it by far the largest racing event in the state, and, if you combine the four-day total, the largest single sports event.
Among the highlights this year — the first under “Colonel’s Truck Accessories” sponsorship — was John Force winning the Funny Car title for his 78th career victory, moving him ever-closer to the retired Bob Glidden’s NHRA record of 85 event championships. Force did it by shattering the BIR elapsed-time record in Friday night qualifying, and then later setting the track speed record for his class in his four-round sweep of elimination runs on Sunday.
Warren Johnson, an Iron Range native of Makinen and the “Ol’ Professor” of Pro Stock racing, set new BIR records for both elapsed time and top speed in Friday qualifying, and got under his E.T. mark in Sunday’s first round. But W.J. was beaten in the final by Jeg Coughlin after a mind-game “burn-down” on the starting line.
Teammates Warren Johnson and his son, Kurt Johnson, stand 1-2 in season points, and they were the only two Pro Stockers who ran times under 7.000-seconds all weekend, but they couldn’t come up with a sub-7 against Coughlin, who had to earn the victory by beating both. Coughlin took out Kurt with a 7.098 in the semifinals, while Warren was dusting Mark Pawuk with a 6.998 at 196.99 mph. But in the final, Coughlin refused to stage, outwaiting Johnson in a psyche-job, then beating his favored foe with a classic “hole-shot” but cutting the starting light closer and running a 7.063 at 194.60. Johnson never could catch up, and let off at the finish with a 7.167.
Top Fuel, however, still is the favorite focal point for the fans, simply because they’re the all-out fastest drag-race machines. Cory McClenathan gave the crowd its first thrill, cranking off a track-record 320.36 mile per hour run on Friday. His elapsed time was a swift 4.648-second flash down the quarter-mile strip, and even though elapsed time determines the top qualifier and the victor — so long as a racer doesn’t get beaten off the line by a foe’s faster reaction to the starting lights — the fans still identify most with the huge speed numbers flashing on the finishing lights.
McClenathan came back and reset the speed record at 323.04 in Sunday’s upset-laden first round, but Gary Scelzi proved the value of elapsed-time in the second round when he broke the BIR record with a 4.531-second burst at 322.65 mph to eliminate Cory Mac’s 4.616 time. Scelzi, in turn, was beaten by Larry Dixon in the semifinals in a spectacular 4.542 to 4.569 match, and Dixon came back in the final to run a 4.594 at “only” 294.95 mph to win the title against Eddie Hill, who was in the lead until the belt that runs his supercharger blew off short of the finish line, and he sagged to a 4.69.
Top Fuel points leader Mike Dunn was beaten by less than 2 feet by Tony Schumacher in the first round, while Kenny Bernstein, who stood first in line to overtake Dunn for the season points lead, also was beaten, by Hill, in the first round. And perennial BIR favorite Joe Amato smoked his tires and lost to Scelzi in yet another first-round surprise.
A more subtle highlight of the weekend was the emergence of Minnesota Timberwolves regular Tom Hammonds, who rose from being a celebrity to proving he is a serious racer by not only qualifying among the top 16 in the hotly contested Pro Stock category, but may have proven even more when he lost in the first round to veteran Bruce Allen.
Hammonds, who had to have his seat moved back and the pedals adjusted in his Winnebago-sponsored Camaro to contain his 6-foot-9 frame, was impressive in the class, which runs 500-cubic-inch V8s but with gasoline and without the superchargers that make Funny Car and Top Fuel racers much faster. Still, Pro Stocks run in the 7-second range at nearly 200 mph.
“The Timberwolves haven’t said anything against me racing,” said Hammonds. “They know how much I love racing. Definitely, I’m taking a risk, but I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t feel safe. I don’t think I’d drive a Top Fuel or Funny Car, though.”
Hammonds ran a first-try 7.073 at 194.69 mph to stand 16th, a perilous position with nine veteran racers anxious for the next three qualifying rounds. “That 7.07 was pretty good, but we know we’ve got to step it up,” said Hammonds, as he awaited Friday’s second session. Then he went out and cranked off a 7.040 at 194.69 mph, solidifying his spot in the field, at 12th. Former class champion Jim Yates and last year’s BIR winner Tom Martino both failed to qualify among the top 16.
In the first round, Allen defeated Hammonds with a 7.044 to a 7.083, and the difference at the finish line was only inches. The NHRA also clocks reaction time, and a 0.400 is perfect, requiring a lucky guess of anticipating the green. Allen had a good 0.498-second reaction time, but Hammonds had a superb 0.464, showing his potential for success in racing. He will, however, not be running any more events this year. Something about training camp for the NBA.
Force, the swashbuckling, outspoken king of the Funny Cars, was up to his usual standards. After his BIR record 4.900-second qualifying sprint, it was pointed out that his impressive 312.28 mph speed meant that his old archrival, Cruz Pedregon, still held the track speed record at 312.39. Force’s smile faded just a bit. “We’ll see,” said Force. Sure enough, he obliterated the speed record with a 318.17 to win his first round, and ran the strip’s second-fastest Funny Car round with a 316.45 in the semifinals, and the third-best at 313.80 on his 4.929 final victory over Whit Bazemore.
Force also was asked about his legendary lines that have been making the NHRA rounds. He once ordered an extremely expensive bottle of Dom Perignon off a restaurant wine list because he thought it said “Don Prudhomme,” his racing idol. And he later gave a waiter at an expensive restaurant $100 to go get him three bottles of Miller Lite beer, which the restaurant didn’t stock. The waiter came through, delivering the three bottles on ice. Are they true, or are they legends? And how much did Force pay, $100 total, or $100 a bottle?
“I can’t remember,” Force scoffed. “I’ve been telling those stories for years. They were lies when I made ’em up, and they’re still lies.”
Whether lies or legends, Force is the best. Both behind the wheel and in the interview room.
(NHRA photo cutlines from BIR)
[Here’s the cutline stuff for the NHRA meet at BIR…(Photos by Gilbert)
#1—–(“mbna” car) Cory McClenathan’s MBNA Top Fuel dragster left the starting line lighted by his flaming exhaust in a qualifying run against ageless Eddie Hill’s Pennzoil racer. McClenathan set BIR’s Top Fuel speed record at 323.04 mph, but Hill ,made it to the final round.
#2—-(Hammonds) Tom Hammonds, a 6-foot-9 Timberwolves NBA star, towered over his Camaro Pro Stock as he awaited qualifying. Hammonds qualified for the first time in an impressive showing at BIR.
#3—-(Force) Funny Car champion John Force launched his Castrol Mustang from the starting line on what became a 4.900-second Funny Car record quarter-mile run at BIR.
Jeremy leaves a legacy of a good life and courage
Tim Byrnes was emotionally drained and a little numb from the sudden ending of his family’s ordeal early last Friday morning, when he looked out from St. Mary’s Hospital and realized the world was still functioning.
There was no bitterness in his voice, just an observation. “I was looking at Duluth coming to life,” Byrnes said. “Everybody was moving, and I thought how none of them knew what had happened. I’ve been in that same situation, where you go about your day, with no knowledge of what’s going on in other people’s lives. We all get turns to be in the position we were in.”
Byrnes’ family — Tim and his wife, Dixie, and their younger son, Dustin — got its untimely turn to hurt Friday. Jeremy Byrnes, their older son, had just died of complications from leukemia.
There is no sense talking about fairness, or to try to calculate the sorrow and emptiness that remain after Jeremy died, far too young, at age 18.
Jeremy was blindsided by leukemia almost exactly two years ago, but he took it on with courage and determination. He seemed to have whipped it for a while, too, although the battle cost him the chance to play football, hockey and baseball at Hermantown High School as a junior during the 1997-98 school year.
No one can say if the medical treatment or his youthful strength or his incredible attitude allowed him the stamina to subdue the disease, probably a combination of all those elements. But his attitude alone was impressive, and he made a moving and impressive return to his beloved hockey team last year, as a 6-foot, 200-pound senior right wing on the Hermantown Hawks team that made it to the state tournament.
I had the honor of writing some stories about Hermantown’s team and its season, although I didn’t write specifically about Jeremy and the disease. He was a good hockey player on an outstanding team; he had suffered enough without having his personal battle force any unwanted special celebrity on him.
Two months ago, in late June, Jeremy came to the hospital for a routine, monthly checkup, but was stunned by the cruel fact that there were new cancer cells in his blood. Leukemia had returned, more aggressively than before, in a different form.
“It threw a curve at me,” he said last month. “It was pretty frustrating to have worked so hard to get rid of it, and then have it come back.”
Undaunted, Jeremy accepted newer and more aggressive chemotherapy. He talked about how he had graduated with a 3.7 grade point average, and how he thought he might study chemistry, and maybe try to work for the FBI someday, but for sure he was going to play hockey at St. Scholastica. He knew that his renewed fight against the disease would probably knock him out for this season, but he’d come back, maybe next year.
He said those things in a hospital room at St. Mary’s, shortly after Derek Plante had brought the Stanley Cup to his room for Jeremy’s private perusal. Sure, Derek’s dad, Bruce Plante, is the coach at Hermantown, and Derek had skated with the Hawks during the NHL’s all-star break. But Jeremy couldn’t believe an NHL star would bring the Stanley Cup to him, all by himself. He posed for pictures that his dad took with Plante, and he raised the giant, silver chalice over his head, the way the Cup winners do after the clinching victory.
A couple days later, Jeremy and I talked about all sorts of things, about his family, about Beth Prosnick, his girlfriend, and about Chris Popovich, his closest friend all through his years growing up in the house on the hill on Midway Rd. His dad is an engineer, and his mom is a loan officer at a bank. His brother, Dustin, likes football, tennis and snowboarding more than hockey, Jeremy explained.
Jeremy also talked openly about his personal battle against leukemia. The lasting impression I have of Jeremy is of a big, strong kid, with a likeable and charismatic personality, which had engulfed all the doctors and nurses and workers who came in contact with him on that third floor in the hospital. Taking on leukemia was just another challenge, Jeremy said.
“It’s all about fighting,” was the way he put it back then. “You’ve got to keep swinging.”
This summer, Jeremy joined Dustin and their dad, playing on the same NNS slow-pitch softball team at Wheeler Field. They played together in their league playoffs just over a week ago. Jeremy went after fly balls in the outfield, colliding once, and diving for the ball. The porta-cast, which is used to administer Jeremy’s cancer-fighting medication, popped out when he hit the ground, so his dad pulled him out of the game. “But he said he felt fine,” said his dad, who will cherish for life the opportunity to play on the same sports team as his sons.
For his most recent round of medication, Jeremy was spending nights at the hospital, but he didn’t make an issue about feeling bad. He was so sick from the chemotherapy, or from his body’s reaction to either the disease or the medication, that he became dehydrated. His body was suffering, but he wasn’t going to let that interfere with what he wanted to do.
Last Wednesday night, I stopped by their house to drop off the negatives of pictures Tim Byrnes had so graciously let us use in the Budgeteer News with a story I had done on Jeremy’s visit from Plante with the Cup. Dustin met me at the door, and Tim joined us for a brief conversation. Tim said the story had really given Jeremy a lift, but that he wasn’t feeling too good right then.
Some kind of infection had complicated things, and Jeremy had a tough time Wednesday night. “He was having some cramps, but he never complained,” Tim said.
On Thursday morning, Jeremy didn’t respond when his dad called to him. Tim went to check on him, and found that Jeremy had fallen, and was unconscious. An ambulance rushed him to St. Mary’s. His blood count was not good, which happens during stages of chemotherapy, and shortly after being admitted, Jeremy was having trouble breathing and was moved to the intensive care unit. He was suffering from toxic shock, so doctors sedated him, hoping to stabilize things.
He responded to his family by squeezing his dad’s finger sometime Thursday night, but he never really regained consciousness.
It’s not fair. Life often isn’t fair. The past few days, undulations of pain, emptiness, frustration, anger — every possible emotion — has gripped his family, his friends, his teammates and everyone else who ever came in contact with Jeremy. But by not being engulfed in the futility of all that they have endured, Tim Byrnes provided an indication of the kind of family life that allowed Jeremy to become such an impressive young man.
There is no way to soothe the ache. Tim knows he won’t ever drive past a hospital again without empathizing with the people inside, where every day some family is trying to endure some personal ordeal.
And Jeremy’s legacy will remain; his dad’s forthright explanation assured it: “You know,” he said, “Jeremy had a terrific life. Just a couple bad days, is all.”
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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