Friday, March 6, 2009

Shawn Alladio Takes Ironwoman Title at the 2009 Mark Hahn 300 Mile PWC Race


SHAWN ALLADIO TAKES IRONWOMAN TITLE AT 2009 MARK HAHN MEMORIAL 300 MILE PERSONAL WATERCRAFT RACE

TUSTIN, CALIF., (3/6/09) - Shawn Alladio, owner of K38Rescue, took top honors in the Ironwoman class as well as third place in the overall finishing standings at the Mark Hahn Memorial 300 mile personal watercraft endurance race at Lake Havasu City, Arizona USA on Saturday, February 28th, 2009.
Alladio, riding for PWCOffshore.com Racing, completed the grueling 300-mile race at Lake Havasu, Arizona, where the usual winter winds of 30 mph blowing across the water added one to two feet of wind waves, in just over six hours for an average speed of nearly 50 miles per hour. To win the Ironwoman class, a woman must ride the entire race without rider change. Most team entries, both male and female, use two riders who usually switch every three or four laps of the ten-mile racecourse.
In typical Alladio fashion, Shawn credits her absolutely stock Kawasaki Ultra 250X JET SKI® watercraft and her crew for her success. “The Mark Hahn 300 is a team event. A racer doesn’t make the event, the team effort does,” Alladio says. “My PWCoffshore.com team mates helped me with pre-race training and pit-crew training. My amazing, ten-person Liquid Militia pit crew was ready and successfully completed our six flawless refueling stops.” For each refueling stop the race rules required the pit crew to take the race boats out of the lake to a designated refueling area about 30 feet from the shore. Moving the thousand-pound boat back and forth across the beach called for precision and coordinated effort by the entire pit crew.
Regarding Shawn Alladio's Ironwoman performance and podium, PWCOFFSHORE team mate and Overall winner Mark Gerner said "That's the real deal as far as I'm concerned,". Gerner had competed himself the previous two years in the Ironman position. "Running in those conditions and doing as many laps as she did, that's fantastic." Gerner, a former Marine Corps Infantry Officer paid Alladio the ultimate compliment, "she is a warrior and a tremendous addition to the PWCOFFSHORE Team".
Alladio added that as long as her strength and determination matched the power of her JET SKI watercraft, her pit crew would make the difference in finishing first or not. And they all succeeded.
Alladio borrowed the showroom stock Kawasaki from her Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. corporate sponsor one day before the race, giving her team enough time to give the boat a thorough once-over and add the logos of her other sponsors. Those sponsors included the American Watercraft Association, PWCOFFSHORE.com Race Team, Liquid Militia Clothing, Hydro-Turf, R&D, OTB Boots, Mustang Survival, K38 Gear, Betty Belts, Hypnotic Films, along with running the American and USMC flags.
The Mark Hahn is one of three long distance races on the West Coast. Alladio and her team plan to contest the other two, the Dana Point to Avalon Offshore Sprint, and the LB2CAT events. The former starts in at Dana Point, in Orange County, Calif., and crosses the Catalina channel to Avalon on Catalina. The LB2CAT is the round trip race from Long Beach, Ca., to Catalina and back.
Alladio said she is also making arrangements to race a European offshore event at Roslagsloppet, Sweden, in August.
In 2009, K38 Water Safety celebrates 20 years of service to recreational, occupational and event management water safety and education! K38 has trained thousands of personnel from fire rescue, lifesaving, military, law enforcement, and search, rescue agencies, and is the worldwide-recognized authority in the occupational use and application of Personal Watercraft. K38 is represented through accredited affiliates in 14 countries worldwide teaching water rescue, racing, officiating, event management, operations, swiftwater, flood, big wave, towsurfing and industry support using JET SKI watercraft for rescue or patrol applications. K38 is founded by Shawn Alladio, a professional IJSBA racer for 2 decades, National Safe Boating Council instructor and water rescue professional. K38’s motto is ‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own’
www.K38WaterSafety.com
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For more information on PWC / Jetski endurance racing, go to www.pwcoffshore.com