Land Rover G4 Challenge Nevada Passage
The Competition Begins
08.05.2008
ECHO BAY MARINA, Echo Bay, Nev. – The first of four days of racing in the Land Rover G4 Challenge Nevada Passage got underway at 7am this morning from the Sunset Station Hotel and Casino in Henderson, Nevada as 10 co-ed teams jumped into their fully outfitted 2008 Land Rover LR3’s for an adventure of a lifetime.The first task for competitors was to find their way from the hotel to St. Thomas - an old ghost town in Clark County which until recently was submerged under Lake Mead - using GPS coordinates. An hour-and-half drive later, for those teams who successfully navigated the route, a second set of instructions sent competitors on a twisting, sandy, mile-long trail run to the remains of what used to be an ice cream parlor back in the mid 1800’s.
The directions they got in the outback sent teams to nearby Overton Marina boat ramp for a timed kayak race on Lake Mead, where one team member was to paddle roughly 5-miles to Stewart’s Point while their teammate drove to that location. At Stewart’s, competitors switched positions and one teammate paddled 7-miles to Echo Bay Marina where the other team member met them in their Land Rover.
Six of the 10 teams started the kayak in the northern arm of Lake Mead at roughly the same time (the four others arrived staggered over the next hour with Team Yellow far behind in last after mismanaging their navigation system and heading in the wrong direction early on). The error was not critical, however, as teams were not scored on arrival time at Lake Mead.
The scoring component was the kayak, calculated from the time the first team member entered the water at Overton until the second team member arrived at Echo Bay. Adventure racing veteran Adam Chase of Team Royal Blue – who grew up paddling on the Connecticut River – was by far the fastest to traverse the first segment and came into Stewart’s Point about an hour after he started and with a six-minute lead.
Chase’s teammate Caroline Colonna was well on her way to protecting the lead and finishing first but missed the turn into Echo Bay and paddled an extra half-mile before getting turned around in the right direction. The miscue allowed Reno, Nevada resident Tom Lyons (who also won the kayaking stage of the 2005 Nevada Passage along the Truckee River) to speed his way past three other competitors into first. Lyons’ partner on Team Purple, Lisa Lieb, had finished the first paddling stage in fourth place and eight minutes behind Chase. Team Purple’s combined time was 2:31:13, best on the day by nearly six minutes.See All Event Posts
