Concrete canoe team eyes national win |
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15 June 2006 ATTENTION: Weekend assignment desks |
Contact:
Liese Greensfelder, Media Relations
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WHAT
A team of University of California, Berkeley, engineering students will compete this weekend against 22 other college teams in the 2006 National Concrete Canoe Competition in Stillwater, Okla. The team qualified for the competition by placing first among eight colleges in the Mid-Pacific regional competition in April.
Sixteen Cal students will compete in the events, which include endurance and sprint races and durability judging. Canoes must pass a pre-race float test to demonstrate that they will not sink should they fill with water.
Weekend news desks interested in the results should call the contact people listed below on Saturday, late afternoon or evening.
WHEN
Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 15-17.
WHERE
Oklahoma State University campus and Boomer Lake, Stillwater, Okla.
DETAILS
UC Berkeley's team placed fourth in last year's national competition. With Caliente, their 21.5 foot craft weighing in at 175 lbs, team members have high hopes of routing the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Badgers, who have taken first place three years in a row.
This year's event, hosted by Oklahoma State University, is the 19th annual concrete canoe competition sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers. A total of $9,000 in academic scholarships will be awarded to the winning teams' undergraduate civil engineering programs, courtesy of Degussa Admixtures, Inc.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Joan Buhrman with the American Association of Civil Engineers is available throughout the events by cell phone at (571) 213-3812. The society will be posting downloadable photos of top-placing teams on Saturday evening on its Web site at: http://www.asce.org/inside/nccc2006/index.cfm. Buhrman may also be able to make arrangements for Oklahoma television networks to share feeds with Bay Area affiliates.
UC Berkeley team member Danny Yost is available by cell phone at (916) 803-8064. He can also supply high-resolution photos of the races. For more information, see: http://canoe.berkeley.edu/ and http://www.asce.org/inside/nccc2006/index.cfm