Barker Heads List at Long Beach Races
It won’t be difficult to find Dean Barker in the 36th Congressional Cup match-racing regatta at Long Beach starting today.
He’ll be the one sailing with a bull’s-eye on his back as America’s Cup champion, but Barker’s sudden path to that title was as unexpected as it gets.
Fancy this: In the final seconds of the final game of his career, Michael Jordan passes off to Ron Harper to take the winning shot.
About to step onto the moon, Neil Armstrong stands aside and says, “After you, Buzz.”
One lap from victory in the Indy 500, A.J. Foyt pulls into the pit, jumps out of the car and tells an unknown rookie, “You take it from here, kid.”
Never happen?
That’s the sort of fantasy Barker has been living since Russell Coutts turned the helm of Team New Zealand’s boat over to his 26-year-old understudy to sail the fifth and clinching race of the Kiwis’ 5-0 sweep of Italy’s Prada Challenge in the America’s Cup at Auckland last month.
As selfless acts go, it was compared to fellow New Zealander Edmund Hillary sharing the glory of the first ascent of Everest arm in arm with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay. As Coutts slipped into the background, it was Barker who drove the boat and Barker who took the victory laps around the harbor, holding the Cup aloft.
And Coutts also made it clear that Barker will be the skipper the next time the Kiwis defend the Cup in 2003.
“I know I don’t have to look in the newspaper next week for another job,” Barker joked.
Coutts’ move also was like saying congratulations, kid, you’re the new top gun in town. Barker, an unassuming sort, has taken it in stride.
“It’s a great feeling to know that I’ve got something to move into,” he said. “It’s not a huge change for the team because Russell will still be there. For me, nothing’s really changed. I still have to go out there and win races. I’m still very critical of myself.”
Even on the day he won the Cup he said, “I would have felt a little silly if we’d lost.”
After all, it was the only America’s Cup race he has sailed, and despite finishing third and second in similar events in New Zealand and Australia last month he doesn’t feel like the favorite at Long Beach.
The field is formidable, topped by two-time defending champion Peter Holmberg, trying for a “three-Pete”; France’s America’s Cup veteran Bertrand Pace, ranked No. 2 in the world; and Germany’s Markus Wieser, who narrowly missed victory last year when Holmberg beat him by three seconds in the final race.
“It’s rough coming to this event,” Barker said. “I haven’t sailed here before, and I have to learn the [Catalina 37] boats and the conditions here and then go out and match-race. Some of these guys have sailed here and done very well.”
Others include Denmark’s Sten Mohr, who is ranked No. 1 but is relatively untested in this class of company; France’s Luc Pillot and Damien Iehl; Australia’s 20-year-old phenom James Spithill and Sebastien Destremau, a transplanted Frenchman; and Long Beach’s transplanted Kiwi, Scott Dickson.
The 10 sailors will go head to head in a double round robin leading to semifinal and final sail-offs Friday, if wind and weather conditions are favorable. The short windward-leeward races will be close to a viewing area on Belmont Pier. Racing will start daily at 11:30 a.m., wind permitting.