Expedition Racing League Launched
Rob / 10.12.2003
Ukatak is now well established as the world’s only winter expedition race and for 2004 the race date has been pushed back from the traditional January date to the end of February. The race will be the North American leg of the series, has just launched a new website and promises a new sponsor announcement shortly.
The other races in the series are more of an unknown quantity, but all will run on the classic unsupported expedition format, lasting between 4 to 6 days.
Terra Incognita in Croatia is the Eastern European stage and the race this year attracted a good international entry. The terrain for the courses is spectacular and although it’s only been going a couple of years Terra Incognita has a reputation as a very tough event. They too have just put up their 2004 website and the dates for the race are May 25-30th..
The same organisers are also planning another Terra Incognita, which will be the South American stage of ERL. ‘Terra Incognita Argentina’ is a new event scheduled for 23rd-28th November, which is the week before the Raid World Championships in Patagonia. The other new race in the series is likely to be the Oceania stage, the name of which is yet to be announced. (The August dates are exactly the same as GeoQuest XPD though …) EcoAventura in Portugal (Oct. 5-10th) and the German Quest Adventure Challenge (Sept. 7-12th) complete the line-up, giving it a strong European bias.
The championships rules allow for a squad of 8 and points can be earned from each race towards a final ranking at the end of the year. The points system is a complex one, factoring in performance on stages and even by how much the winners are ahead of the second placed team. Penalties too are complex, covering everything from allowing another to pass deliberately so they can get more points, to not sending in your travel details in advance!
There is prize money of $75,000US on offer, to be divided up between the top European, American and Oceania teams, and some set aside for the top male and female racers too. There is also some extensive TV coverage lined up and the promise that teams taking part in 4 or more races will be featured as part of 12 documentaries being distributed to global TV networks.
This is going to an expensive series to commit to but teams can benefit from up to 20% off the regular price of race entry depending on the number of events they participate in and the organisers say the average registration cost per athlete for a team entering all 6 races would be only US$374 per event.
It’s obviously early days for ERL, but you can find all the details at www.expeditionracingleague.com, where on-line entry to the races and information in several languages will be available soon.
SleepMonsters
