A bumps race is a form of rowing race in which a number of boats chase each other in single file, each crew attempting to catch and "bump" the boat in front without being caught by the boat behind.
The form is mainly used intramurally at the University of Cambridge, since 1827, and at the University of Oxford since 1815. Bumps racing in fours is also the format of intramural rowing at Eton College and at Shrewsbury School. It is particularly suitable where the stretch of water available is long but narrow, precluding side-by-side racing. Bumps racing gives a sharper feel of immediate competition than a head race, where boats are simply timed over a fixed course. Few rowers worldwide use rivers as narrow as the Cam or the Isis, but bumps races are also contested elsewhere (see below).
Read more about Bumps Race: Racing Practice and Procedures, Organisation, Races
Famous quotes containing the words bumps and/or race:
“America does to me what I knew it would do: it just bumps me.... The people charge at you like trucks coming down on you—no awareness. But one tries to dodge aside in time. Bump! bump! go the trucks. And that is human contact.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“But for the national welfare, it is urgent to realize that the minorities do think, and think about something other than the race problem.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)