Chasing Kiwi’s at the Southern Traverse

Rob / 29.10.2002

In a few week’s time at the Southern Traverse 2 UK teams, Lythgoe and Land Rover, will face the daunting task of challenging the best teams in New Zealand on home ground.

Pick of the bunch heading for the wine growing region of Marlborough are Seagate.com, who have just won Eco-Challenge in Fiji and they are tipped as favourites. Earlier in the year they also won the USA Gorge Games and are looking for a hat-trick of victories.

Nathan Faavae, Jeff Mitchell and Neil Jones have been together for several years now, and were 2nd in the Adventure Racing World Championships in Switzerland last year with Kathy Lynch. Kristina Strode Penny has joined the team in 2002 and Southern Traverse race director, Geoff Hunt, says recovery will be a key to their success in Marlborough. “The fast pace of the Southern Traverse will demand that the team have sufficiently recovered from Fiji to stay ahead of the pack. However, with the course being in Nathan’s home region, they will certainly have the home advantage and navigation won’t be a problem for them as it will be for many in the field.”

Several other NZ teams will be in the hunt too, as well as USA’s Team Subaru, led by Dan Barger, and Dialink of France. They will all know to watch out for Team Lythgoe though, after the Davies family, Jim, Nicola, Phil and Andrew lead the race comfortably last year before pulling out when Phil was injured. This time they are looking forward to staying out in front, a feeling Jim and Nicola have got used to in 2002, winning the Indoor Championships, Adrenalin Rush and the British Championships.

In Team Land Rover are Steve ‘Ski’ Sharp, Nicola MacLeod, Ranulph Fiennes and Norman Dunroy. They too are a formidable team, maybe not as fast as Lythgoe, but with a huge store of experience to draw on they are a very good bet for a highly placed finish. Ski Sharp was a key member of Team 9feet.com and earlier this year raced Raid the North Extreme at the same time as Nicola MacLeod and Richard Picton were winning the 4 Winds USA Supreme race by a huge margin. Sharp and Fiennes finished the Southern Traverse last year as part of an unranked team, so they know the event well, and Norman Dunroy is already in New Zealand resting up after the Eco Challenge.

For him too recovery will be the key factor after 10 days of the toughest racing in Fiji, but according to his team mate there, Keith Byrne, he was “almost unaffected by the whole thing.” He went on to say, “It just confirmed our feeling that next year Norm needs to race at a much higher level.”

He will have plenty of competition in New Zealand come November 18th and SleepMonsters.com will be there to report live on how both teams get on – making sure you won’t miss a thing.