The World Adventure Racing Championships (XPD Australia)
Counting Down to the Start
Rob Howard / 31.10.2011
Once the teams had filed out of the Arts centre clutching their armful of maps, all 37 of them, the countdown was on to get ready for the 09.00am start in the morning. With 160 kayaks lined up on the beach its going to be a spectacular, and probably disorderly start! The beach is only just wide enough for all the kayaks!While the race fly though video was showing the appearance of shooting and caving got a cheer, and the longer stages some gasps as they just seemed to go on and on. There was a round of applause when it was announced the maps were all pre-marked with the checkpoints and that climbing equipment and helmets would be supplied for the only abseil in the race, rather than carried by the teams. There were a few amendments to the maps to be copied, and these are a mix of 1:25.000 and 1:50.000, plus one additional custom map and one satellite map (for finding the checkpoints in the big dunes on the East Coast).
In his briefing Craig Bycroft said the maps were good by Australian standards, but perhaps not as good as in some other countries. He added that he’d made the amendments to the recent 1968 update! And that some roads on the maps were not there, while some not on the maps were!
Once the teams had their maps and corrections they didn’t hang around and shot off back to their accommodation to start work. With 37 maps to work through and a 70 page route book, they have a lot of work to do as they check all the instructions and pack their gear boxes accordingly.
Rob Preston of Team Blackheart, the top Australian team said, “I was surprised there were so many stages and wasn’t expecting all the short stages at the start. The lead teams are going to set off at speed on those!� He didn’t think there was as much elevation on this course compared to other more mountainous regions and hoped for a bit more mountain biking. (430km isn’t enough!) His team are here to win and he commented, “We know what the area is like, but have not visited any of the course, and don’t have all the problems of travel and jet lag etc, some of the other teams have. This might give us a slight advantage and we’ll give it our best shot but it is such a strong field. We think we are in with a chance.� When pressed he picked Seagate as their main opponents, followed by Thule and Silva.
Teams will be carrying SPOT devices for safety and tracking purposes and they were given a run through on how to use them. It’s complex and they need resetting every 24 hours, so hopefully the teams will remember. They also won’t work in forest and heavy cloud cover, so don’t be alarmed if there are gaps in the transmissions of any teams you are following.
At the end of the briefing the totals of the disciplines in the race were; Kayaking – 124km, Mtb – 430km, and trek 170km (+9 ‘other’) and the prediction is for the winners to arrive back at Burnie early on Monday morning. See All Event Posts
