Saab Salomon Pay the Penalty and Lose Top 10 Place

Rob / 10.06.2002

The new British team Saab Salomon were hit with a 3 hour time penalty at the first Salomon X-adventure Raid event in Scandinavia this weekend (June 8/9th) and lost out on a top 10 position as a result.

This was always going to be their toughest race as they were at a disadvantage on the winter skills against the top Alpine and Scandinavian teams, so their final place of 15th isn’t too bad, but there is that nagging feeling of ‘if only’. In this case it’s ‘if only we’d remembered the tent!’ They forgot to put in that mandatory piece of equipment, and paid the price after a kit check.

Despite this Team Manager Tim Lloyd still felt it was a good start. “It was a brilliant race, and the course and weather have been fantastic, it was 31C yesterday. The result is respectable given the snow conditions on the high stages. We tried to ski the first snow stage, but then switched to snowshoes for the 2 other snow sections as it was quicker for us. On the other stages, apart from the in-line skating, we were consistently around 4th or 5th.”

The winners, on a course which crossed the Swedish/Norwegian border in Lapland, were French team Intersport, who won a battle with another top French team, Spie. Scandinavian teams did well, as expected, and the first points are now registered for the series, which leads to guaranteed places in the next Raid Gauloises. We’ll have a full report from Tim Lloyd very soon so check back later in the week.

[ …… Meanwhile, at a sodden and midge ridden Kielder another squad member, Marc Laithwaite was winning his first ever ACE Race (though he gave the wrong no. when having his kit check and nearly got penalised too!) We’ll have a full report and lots of pictures soon.]