Southeastern US Region Final

The first (hopefully annual) Southeastern Region Final will be in Asheville, NC this summer. We are inviting road bowling organizations from all over the Southeast US for friendly (and somewhat informal) matches on the Novice 3 and Novice 4 levels. We currently have participants from Asheville, Charlotte, and Charleston, SC hopefully attending as well as some of our good friends from West Virginia.  If you have a club that we failed to invite please email us at jhunter@ashevilleroadbowling.com. 

This will be a first time event with the hopes of expanding in the future with a possible rotation of sites. Obviously we are open to ideas but this invitation is the first step!

I am currently working on lodging options so if your organization does have members who would like to attend and compete please give us an estimate. For Asheville locals if you have any connections that could help us out please let us know. We have a few ideas for roads but this is a big area so if you know of an even better road let us know and we'll go throw some bowls to test it out!

More details to follow.

St. Patrick's Day recap

We are ready to head into a new season after a downtime a little longer than expected.  So here are a few photos from St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, West Virginia.

Toddlers bowled!

I don't care where they live... they're part of the AIRBA

Carrie bowled it straight

Have to teach the little ones early

This is the type of thing you see in WV

Thanks for the help Carrie

Seriously... slow down

Now this is a good looking gang

Good looking guys... especially the one representing Asheville

Jess always with the good form

We can't wait to see everyone in Asheville this year!  A big announcement to follow with another bowling date or two as well!

2012 Season Is Close!

Irish Road Bowling sure is spreading around the United States! I keep getting updates from Google on new events popping up all over so I figured that I would share a few.  We're looking for new roads in the area all the time but for now we will focus a bit on events from other parts of the country.

Of course our great friends in WV have the Irish Spring Festival on St. Patrick's day weekend in Ireland, WV.

http://www.angelfire.com/wv/irishspringfestival/

The folks down in Savannah are having their event the following weekend and who knows... if we get back from WV in time and feel nice and refreshed that would be a great trip.

http://www.aohsavannah.com/

There are matches in Missouri and Kansas. Actually the event in Kansas is happening today!

http://www.whig.com/story/17070404/registration-open-through-monday-for-irish-road-bowling-at-st-patrick-mo-celebration

http://www.lawrencestpatricksdayparade.com/roadbowl.html

There is a second event in WV in Pipestem.

http://www.wvnstv.com/story/17025935/irish-heritage-fetival-returns-to-pipestem-state-park

A few of our group will be in Ireland, WV and we are looking forward to seeing everyone! We should have our first matches of the year in Western North Carolina in the next month or so. Hope everyone gets out and has a chance to bowl in the next couple weeks!

Irish Road Bowling on ESPN

Irish Road Bowling on ESPN

It's our off-season at the moment but I thought I would let anyone interested know that ESPN's Kenny Mayne has a very nice piece on Irish Road Bowling, just click the link above.  It's a good watch if you have a few minutes.

And here is a photo from our last time out... looking forward to Spring already!

Also reminders for anyone that may want to join us in the future for a match we are on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Asheville-Irish-Road-Bowling-Association/113832515298883) and Google+ (https://plus.google.com/u/0/108991726337648326701/posts) or just check out the website.  We've got a couple videos and a lot more info on road bowling there... www.ashevilleroadbowling.com

Fall Road Bowling in Weaverville

Fall Irish Road Bowling

Weaverville, NC

The Asheville Irish Road Bowling Association bowling in Weaverville today and produced a couple new records.  It was a small group that featured a couple doubles matches.  

The team of Scott Carson and Justin Hunter broke the out road record with a 19.  

On the way back in the team of Scott Carson and Aaron Hodges tied Jonathan Brooks and Justin Hunter's record score of 16.  However, they came within mere feet of scoring a 15.

*note, we bowl one road out about a mile and then back.  Also part of the road got a bit of repaving which may have helped a touch but I think we can give credit to continued improvement.

We will be back out again early in 2012 and throughout the year!  Who knows, we may even make it out one more time this year.

Asheville Irish Road Bowling on ABC WLOS

I was finally able to get a copy of the resent story done by WLOS ABC in Asheville, NC.  We actually bowled in Weaverville but they were able to piece together a couple minutes for us.  This video is missing the anchor lead in and the graphics but I think it is well done.

So one of the most popular questions I get is why do we have baseball gloves.  I am almost positive we are the first group to adopt this but here in Asheville our hills are a little steeper which creates some pretty drastic drops off the road.  Baseball gloves have helped us a ton in stopping the bowls from getting us in bad situations.  We have saved a lot of time.  Also it is much safer than stopping a bowl with your feet if it is headed towards danger!

Let us know if you have any questions!

The AIRBA on WLOS

Irish Road Bowling on WLOS

Many thanks to WLOS for their great story on the Asheville Irish Road Bowling Association.  Click the link to check out the story.