The World Adventure Racing Championships (XPD Australia)
Two US Teams Have Now Finished
Rob Howard / 08.11.2011
This morning five more teams have come into the finish line, including another Australian team, two World Series qualifiers and two teams from the USA. Technu Extreme of the USA were the first of this mornings finishers, followed by Mountain Designs of Australia, adidas TERREX Accom/Opavanet (The European champions), then Wilderness Traverse (winners of Raid the North Extreme) and Team Bones of the USA. This brings the number of finished full course teams to 16 so far.Wilderness Traverse said they had a difficult race due to an early injury to Jakob Van Dorp so they were just glad to have completed the whole course. Team captain Bob Miller just shrugged and said, “These things happen sometimes.�
Team Bones had quite a welcome waiting for them from a group of local supporters who adopted the team and cheered them in. They too had taken the longer coasteering route at Rocky Cape this morning (and were caught in a thunderstorm), but at the start of this section found a trail of tape leading to a tin of cookies put there by a local resident. Later on, at the finish line, they met the ‘cookie fairy’ who was a local TV cameraman who lives in a small community in the National Park. The team were also given small gift bags of Tasmanian souvenirs and were so overwhelmed with their welcome they almost forgot to eat their pizza!
As he walked into HQ Roy Malone said to Race Director Craig Bycroft, “Very nicely done!� Later he commented, “I never thought I’d find a race to rival the Eco Challenges, but this one did, it was a real expedition. We had real challenges in all the disciplines, lots of misery, and every kind of weather. We had some snow, heavy rain, blazing sun and vicious winds. It had everything.�
“For me the hardest part mentally was the end of the long bike ride. It was so long, then at the end we found ourselves thigh deep in mud and it was really hard to keep going.�
Bycroft thinks the race is still on course to have a 50% finish rate before the 10 day course closure time, but has brought forward the cut off at the start of the last paddle to 2pm this afternoon. After that teams won’t have time to finish the course back to Burnie. Those who arrive after this cut off will ride on to Rocky Cape, then complete the final coastal trek and ride to the finish. (It’s been decided they will still get their finishers medal.)
Information on teams further back on the course is getting harder to come by, though most teams are now on the Arthur River. Many teams are now unranked and Bycroft says there is a lot more ‘team hoping’ going on than is usual in XPD races (when the remaining team members join together to push on after their teams become unranked). I’m told that several teams stopped and checked into the hotel at Waratah on the long bike ride, and that Toyota Costa Rica Adventure Race spent $150 on the shop to stock up on supplies before continuing!See All Event Posts
