Runners getting loose for Sunday's races in Raleigh

Early spring's ice covered the ground in Hillsborough, but there was no ice water in Brent Dorenkamp's veins to calm his nerves that March morning three years ago. Preparing for the start of his first sprint triathlon, he worried that he wouldn't make it through the biking, running and swimming.

But Dorenkamp gutted out the race, and he was hooked. A year later, his growing interest in triathlons evolved into a desire to produce his own races.

The Raleigh-based production company he created with a pair of friends who played football at N.C. State continues to grow. This weekend in Raleigh, their company, FS Series, will time finishers in Sunday's City of Oaks Marathon, an event expected to draw 3,500 marathon and half-marathon runners.

It will be FS Series' first year of involvement with the marathon and the largest event it's worked on to date.

"We wanted to show a large audience what we're capable of doing," Dorenkamp said. "We're excited about timing the City of Oaks Marathon."

When Dorenkamp wanted to create his own race event in 2006, area race production companies were too busy to help with the logistics. So Dorenkamp called his friend Jason Biggs, a punter on N.C. State's football team in the 1990s.

Biggs in turn called his former Wolfpack teammate Marc Primanti, an All-American place-kicker in 1996. The friends became business partners, and in April 2007, FS Series put together its first race.

"It started with a little idea of one individual event trying to get squeezed onto the schedule, and it grew into something larger," Primanti said.

FS Series was intended to be a side project for the three friends, but now only Dorenkamp maintains his full-time job as an athletic trainer at Wakefield High School.

FS Series bought a trailer and a $50,000 timing system and organized about 60 events in 2009. Twenty of those events were triathlons and duathlons, and the rest were road races.

All of the events took place in North Carolina, with 40 occurring in or near Research Triangle Park. FS Series hopes to expand to about 75 events next year.

The original plan was to call their company Finish Strong, because they work hard from beginning to end to produce a positive result, Dorenkamp said. Another company had trademarked the name, however, so they settled on FS Series because their fans know they will finish strong, he said.

"They just put a little more effort into it," said Robert Jones, 47, who has completed seven multisport FS Series events this year. "There is always somebody at the finish line or at each transition point there to cheer you on."

Dorenkamp said FS Series has received positive reviews from competitors in past races, which have continued to grow despite sour economic conditions.

"We've only found one event where we've had lower registration than it did the previous year," Biggs said. "Every other race has almost doubled in participation."

Despite the success of FS Series, they understand that expanding could tarnish their reputation. This Sunday, Dorenkamp and his partners will be on the clock, trying to impress 3,500 runners in Raleigh.

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