Salomon Raid to Bring Europe’s Top Teams to Scotland

Rob / 12.01.2003

Salomon have some exciting plans for UK adventure racing for the year ahead, in particular the return of the X-adventure Raid World Series in early May. The event, provisionally scheduled for 9-11th, will bring some of the best teams in Europe and the world to Scotland for the opening race of the series. As this is now the only route to the Raid Gauloises, with free entry going to the top 27 teams in the series, the big guns of world racing will be out to get a good start.

It’s sure to fire up Team Saab Salomon, who had a poor start at the first race of 2002, when they had to cope with Nordic ski skills in the first race in Norway, and got a penalty for leaving a tent behind. This year they will be on ‘home’ territory and will be hoping to set the pace. It’s also an ideal opportunity for ‘up and coming’ teams to mix with the top names and take part in one of the world’s most prestigious race series. And if you can’t race it will be well worth watching.

Full details have yet to be released, but they shouldn’t be long in coming and the provisional calendar for the series reads as follows:

• Scotland - 9th/11th May
  
• France/Italy - 11th/13th July
  
• USA - 8th/10th August
  
• Spain - 5th/7th September
  
• New Caledonia - to be confirmed - end of October / Early November

If you don’t know where the last venue is look in the Atlas - in the Coral Sea, North of New Zealand and East of Australia. A lot of racers will be hoping ‘The Adventure Racing World Tour’ confirms THAT destination, and teams on tighter budgets will be looking to the 3 European races to secure their points – making Scotland likely to be even more competitive.

The sad news is that the Salomon one-day race series that’s been a popular UK fixture for some time won’t be happening this year. However, the company are continuing with the National X-adventure, which will take place over the weekend of August 30-31st in North Wales, organised as always by Nigel Shepherd. The race will once again be a British Championship event and it’s another date to put in your diary now.

[As soon as entry details are available for both races we’ll add them to the calendar.]