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Champions Again

Rob Howard / 05.10.2004

Saab Salomon Orange completed their British racing season at the ACE Races Xtra last weekend with another convincing win and retained their British Championship title.

The Xtra was a fitting final test for the BARC series, with teams tackling a night time abseil, a rope ascent, 30k of technical riding at night on the Kirroughtree trail, and an additional endurance riding stage – all on top off the 5 regular ACE Race stages!

Teams who completed all of the night time ride began at midnight, immediately after Saturday’s night navigation stage, not finishing until after 4am. Then they had to be ready to resume with the trail run stage at 7.20am – so even the quickest teams grabbed only a couple of hours sleep. Then they caught the worst of the weather on their second lap of the canoe course later on Sunday, with high winds making paddling difficult. There was more than enough Xtra to test those who wanted a British ranking!

Of the 14 teams who started out, only 10 were able to finish the course. There were several early withdrawals from injury on the tussocks and bogs of the Cross-Country stage, including Aztec Multipower and Snow and Rock, who were both highly ranked at the start.

High Five retained their second position despite a poor paddle, and Team Polaris shot up the rankings by finishing second and claiming 30 BARC points. They finished joint 3rd with Anabasis, who were the only team to keep all 4 team members the same throughout the series. These 3 teams also completed all the series races.

There was no doubting the winners though. With 4 wins Saab Salomon Orange finished with 100 points and their supremacy was never threatened. The team for this final race was Morgan Donnelly, Steve Birkinshaw, Tom Gibbs and Nicky Davies, and they kept the SSO unbeaten record over two years of British racing.

After completing 15 major races in 2004, the final challenge for the UK’s elite squad will be the Raid World Championships in Argentina in December, when they will be competing with the world’s best, carrying the title of British Champions with them.

(The BARC leaderboard will be updated soon and a full race report will follow.)