Eastern Mountain Sports Claim World Champs Place at Appalachian (very) Extreme
27.05.2005
Team Eastern Mountain Sports, comprised of Team Captain, Jennifer Shultis, teammates; Vytenis Benetis, Dave Lamb, and Pete Swenson, crossed the finish line at Sunday River Ski Resort’s Grand Summit hotel.To say the Appalachian Extreme had its many ‘extremes’ would truly be an understatement. With relentless rain and nearly freezing temperatures for the extent of the race, the weather became another discipline in itself. This weather and the difficult navigation proved too much for many of the teams, even the most experienced.
Team Supplierpipeline, one of the favorites to win, enjoyed an early lead, coming into the first staffed checkpoint of the first mountain bike in first place. Then, the team seemed to be “off the map†so to speak. At the next recorded checkpoint, Supplierpipeline was suddenly in 18th place, having had trouble navigating the maze of ATV trails and other roads.
Team Subaru USA, another team in contention, led the race well into the 3rd leg, a mostly trail-free, intermittently deep snow covered, 33-mile trekking leg. However, with only 2 checkpoints to go in the trek, Subaru USA called in on their Satellite Phone, and requested that their support crew come pick them up. It wasn’t the first time the race leaders fell victim to the navigation.
After nailing the fastest trekking leg, and paddling a very fast 34-mile section of lakes and tricky portaging sections, the 2004 Appalachian Extreme’s 2nd place finisher, Team Simon River Sports pulled out of the final Transition Area (TA4/CP27) at 9:20AM on Monday on bikes with a huge 10-hour lead. Four hours later, they had returned to TA4, having made little progress.
After finally making it to the next checkpoint (CP28), it would be CP29 that would elude them the longest, eventually handing over their lead sometime early Tuesday morning to Team Eastern Mountain Sports.
