Rajd Beskidy

Day 3 in Slovakia – Into the Mala Fatra National Park

Rob Howard / 21.06.2023

Moving into day 3 at Rajd Beskidy all of the teams are on the Slovakian section of the course and all have made it past the first cut-off in the race.  The weather is hot again, but not as hot as yesterday and some thunderstorms are expected, potentially striking when the leaders are at the race high point in the Mala Fatra National Park.

In the early hours of the morning the two lead teams arrived at TA2, which is set up at the Tilia Gacel camping park beside the River Ostrava. The race has moved into a large, permanent marquee tent set up by the entrance and on arrival teams left dismantling their bikes and quickly settled down on the stage area to get some sleep.  The 160km ride to get there had been demanding in the heat and the final checkpoint (#69) had taken them many hours.  (Race Director Jerzy Lekki said the route they chose was too steep and the way he marked on the tracker was much better!)

The Nonstop Adventure team arrived first at 02.40 in the morning, with the Snowdog trail team following at 03.29.  Stanisław Odróbka of Nonstop Adventure said, “It was a good day but it was very hot.  We enjoyed it and eat well!  We had a good breakfast and stopped in the evening in a restaurant to eat.  We were there an hour I think.”

The team is also carrying a pot of basil with them for snacks!  They eat the leaves and say it gives them more energy.  It’s working so far as they are winning! 

Their lead over Snowdog is increased by a 1 hour 15 minute time bonus as they were forced to wait at a TA earlier in the race.  Snowdog had to wait too, and have a 36 minute credit.

The teams woke and packed up for the next rafting stage together, so Nonstop got more sleep, and they put into the river within 5 minutes of each other.  The water had good flow and there were a few small rapids.  Odróbka fell out in one of them.

Snowdog were the quicker paddlers taking just 1 hour 27 minutes for the 12km paddle, though they lost over 5 minutes trying to find the take out. It was hard to see in the trees on the riverside and they searched up and down for a while.  By the time they found it Nonstop were in sight and they led them in!

Third placed team Onsight Navagatoria didn’t stop at TA2.  They has slept 2 hours on the cycle ride and said they were full of energy and keen to start paddling.  They have a big incentive as after the paddle comes an 8 hour trek in the Mala Fatra National Park and the park regulations mean there is a night time dark zone (10pm to 4am).  So Onsight are on a fairly tight timetable to get the trek done in time.  (If they are within one hour of completing it they have some leeway to walk out.)

Further back teams ‘We love the smell of flags in the morning’ and the OMM Nordisk Team are making good progress and passed the first race cut-off at CP65 and should beat the cut-off at TA2 at 7pm tonight.  They can then raft up to 10pm, but both will be caught by the subsequent cut off in the National Park and will fall further behind the lead teams.