Ready to Race THE Raid
Rob / 09.03.2003
The full team list is still to be finalised but 30 of the 35 places are determined. The top 27 teams from the Raid Series, plus the top 3 from the US race last year have already won their place. In 3rd spot are the UK’s top team - Saab Salomon, and former winners Nokia Adventure qualified in 13th place. The remaining 5 ‘wild card’ places are still to be decided, but there is a shortlist on the Raid website. This includes defending champions VSD Eider, and the team of 2002, Seagate.com of New Zealand, and it would be very surprising if they didn’t both get in.
Kyrgyzstan is mountainous country and the previews of the course say there will be a lot of uphill – 13000m of it! That’s more than on the course in Tibet/Nepal, but that race started at a higher altitude. There shouldn’t be any problems with altitude though as the average height will be around 1500m with a high point of 4300, but followed by a rapid descent. Teams can also expect a fair bit of horse riding in a course approximately 820km long, and the height gain, temperate climate and mountainous course are all good news for Saab Salomon. It’s a course that should suit Nicky and Jim Davies, Pete James and Ben Bardsley very well.
They will expect to be among the top teams, but after the qualifying process it’s hard to say who the top teams are. VSD Eider, Seagate.com, Nokia, Golite of the USA and the top European teams from the series, Spie, Alliance Salomon and Intersport will all be among the favourites. There are questions though about how teams who’ve specialised in such fast, weekend racing, will do on Raid Gauloises, which is a very different proposition. The organisers have said they expect the teams to be faster and not spread out so much, but experience of longer races, dark zones, cut-offs, sleep strategy and the vagaries of the mountain weather will all play their part as they always do.
One major change to the organisation this year, again in line with the Raid Series philosophy, is that there will be no support teams. There will be just 2 assistance points on the course and the organisation will transport equipment as needed, which should remove another element of chance outside of team’s control. The Raid organisation are promising to be strict on the rules though, as they were at the start last year when many teams were penalised. The know the teams well from the Raid Series, and how good they are at ‘interpreting’ the rule book!
Whatever happens it’s going to be a great race and you can keep up with the pre-race news on the Raid Gauloises website here and see our coverage of last year’s race here.
SleepMonsters
