August 16th, 1975 in Lake Tahoe
Although only one individual leg record was shattered during the 1975 edition of theRobt. E. DeCelle, Jr. Memorial Relays (Tahoe Relays), many of the old marks were missed by just a few seconds. It all added up to a very fast race. Prior to the race, WVTC’s captain Jack Leydig, said it might very well take a sub-6:25 to win it & this turned out to be the case. Had the weather been a bit cooler & the competition a bitkeener, the 6:20 mark might have been eclipsed.
After Mark Pinocci blitzed to a third leg mark & put WVTC ahead, it was just a matterof how fast the race might develop. Although the 3rd/4th exchange point was off a bit, it was figured that about 207 paces should have been added to the 3rd leg (subtracted from the 4th leg). After some calculations, it was determined 45 seconds was a reasonable time to add & this still gave Mike a time of 53:32. That was far superior to Ron Elijah’s 1974 standard of 54:48. Ron Wayne just missed the 1st leg record by 4 seconds while Jack Bellah was within 1 second of the anchor.
A total of 5 teams dropped below the once-magic 7-hour barrier. Three other teams were within a few minutes. The NorCal seniors were the first Master’s team to complete the round-the-lake circuit with a time of 8:19:59 (34th). A WVTC women’s squad completed the relay in just under 9 hours (8:59:39) for what’s believed to also be a new record to go with the men’s. The first ‘open’ team was the “Mad River” squad who placed second overall in 6:36:07.
