If Race Is to the Scared, This Skier Should Do OK

In a way, Jan Wilson believes being scared is thrilling--”like when you take a ride on a roller coaster,” she explained. Wilson added that she expects to feel that reaction during her race from Newport Beach to Santa Catalina Island and back on a single water ski.

“I get very, very nervous out there,” said the 36-year-old San Clemente woman, an American Airlines flight attendant and mother of an 8-year-old son. “It’s scary going that fast.” But her fears are belied by the fact that she won the National Water Ski Racing Championship at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border in her age group last year, averaging about 50 m.p.h.

And despite reaching 70 m.p.h. at the start of the race, and sometimes riding heavy swells while being towed by a ski boat, Wilson is planning to enter the 62-mile Catalina Marathon in August.

“I think I have a pretty good chance to win my division,” Wilson said. “I just have to keep from falling.” She noted that some contestants fall as many as four times during the race, losing valuable time.

She finished fourth in the Catalina race two years ago.

Wilson said she has been in water sports most of her life and has learned to handle the sometimes difficult task of maneuvering over ocean swells and the tedium and loneliness of marathon ski racing.

But to hear her training program, it would seem there is little chance for victory.

For instance, she hasn’t been on a ski in a year, and her major training is riding a bicycle long distances. “Riding a bicycle is my favorite thing,” she said. It strengthens her legs for the ride on one ski with positions for both feet.

“When I won the nationals I hadn’t been skiing for a year,” said Wilson, who may enter some ski racing events in San Diego next month in preparation for the Catalina race. “I work out occasionally on my days off,” she added.

While she didn’t do much skiing to prepare for last year’s nationals race, “I was in pretty good shape,” and this time, brothers John and Andy Urtusuastegui will serve as observer and driver, respectively, in their 12-foot, 200-horsepower ski boat.

Racing is a relatively new-found adventure for her, Wilson said, adding, “I’m not really a very competitive person.” But she said she thinks of it as a family event.

“I started water skiing to do something that could involve my son (Michael). It’s a family-oriented sport, and nice, healthy people take part.”

And the best part of the race? “When it’s over and we’re heading home and talking about what we did.”

The highlight of Sunday’s truck show at Anaheim Stadium was supposed to be the trucks, but how do you compete with a wedding held right in the middle of the parking lot loaded with 18-wheelers, fire engines and pickup trucks?

The nuptials were those of Jill Landrigan and Jim Grogan, who chose to be married between the Fire Engine Rodeo and Parade of Stars events.

Grogan, a 15-year truck driving veteran, met Landrigan four years ago at a Palmdale restaurant where she was a waitress. The courtship culminated in Grogan’s proposal to her during last year’s truck show.

Actress Lee Meriwether, honorary chairwoman of the show, introduced the couple to an enthusiastic crowd from the back of a flatbed truck. Then she hummed the wedding march in honor of the couple.

Instead of wedding gifts, the couple asked guests to make donations to the Crippled Children’s Society.

Special events draw special crowds. That’s why about 2,000 spectators are expected at 11:30 a.m. Thursday to watch Cypress College’s 15th annual Duck Pond Race across the campus lake.

College spokesman James Sladeck said that besides being a money raiser for the various clubs on campus through the sale of foods and such items as T-shirts, the race also serves to introduce high school seniors to a community college campus.

“Besides the academics, it shows them how much fun they can expect at college,” Sladeck said, noting that he expects about 15 teams of college students to race across the lake on inner tubes.

Acknowledgments--When you talk about community volunteerism, think of Ruth Rowland, 97, of Tustin, whose volunteer efforts date back to World War II. She was just honored with scores of other volunteers by United Western Medical Centers in Santa Ana.