Fulda Challenge

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No bother with the Hover

Caroline Pick / 08.02.2004

The British teams taking part in the Fulda Tyres Arctic Challenge warmed up in sub-zero temperatures and scored the most points they have achieved so far in a single day.

Gary Bullen finished third to score seven points in a hovercraft handling competition that took place at minus five degrees centigrade. The event was held along the lonely highway that stretches 530 kilometres north from the Yukon\'s capital, Whitehorse (population. 22,500), to the 1898 Klondike gold rush town of Dawson City. Barry Nutley, 59, and on the British Hi-Q team team, placed sixth in the same event and collected four points.

Meanwhile in the women\'s competition, Gill Watson placed sixth in the hovercraft competition, with Clare Dawson n the British Hi-Q team, pipping her at the post for a fourth place finish. It earned her team six points. \"I\'ve never seen anything like that machine before,\" said Clare Dawson. \"I just took it easy. If you slightly over-steered, the back end swung out. If you knocked down one pylon on the slalom course, you were assessed a five-second penalty.\"

An hour down the ice-covered, isolated road towards Dawson, competitors were again stopped and asked to change a tyre and run 100 metres before putting it back on. Nutley placed second and scored eight points, but wasn\'t happy. \"I\'m good at that sort of thing,\" he said. \"I thought I\'d won.\"

Gary Bullen was not looking forward to this event. He explained \"I\'m not a mechanic and prefer competing in the physical challenges.\" He placed sixth and claimed four points. In the women\'s event, Gill Watson finished second, scoring eight points.

Clare Dawson was sixth, two minutes and 10 seconds behind. \"You can\'t imagine how heavy a tyre is until you have to pick it up and run with it,\" she said.

The British \"A\" team has scored 95 points after ten events and is in sixth position in the nine-team competition. The British Hi-Q team has 62 points and is bringing up the rear, although already scoring more points than two British attempts in the challenge in the previous two years.

Canada leads on 129 points, with Austria in second place. \"The standard of athletes has risen incredibly,\" said Nutley who has coached and managed the other two British teams. \"There are people who are veteran ironman triathlete competitors, young snowboard and ski instructors and an Alpine guide who ice climbs in competitions. Gitti Koeck on the Austrian team won a bronze snowboard medal at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.\"

On Saturday the athletes will drive about 400 kilometres further north and compete in a half-marathon race that ends at the Arctic circle. \"It could be very cold run,\" said Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable Greg McHale, who is competing with his wife Denise and patrols this region from Dawson. \"The forecast is for temperatures of -30. If there is a wind, skin can freeze in seconds.\"See All Event Posts