Expedition Africa Namaqua West Coast 2018
Expedition Africa – Place Your Bets
Rob Howard / 17.05.2018
There are 52 teams for this year’s Expedition Africa on the Namaqua West Coast, gathered from all around the globe and all across South Africa. Among them are some of the most experienced adventure racers of all time (Masato Tanaka and Petri Forsman to name two), teams who are regulars at AR World Series races and have the experience to cope with almost anything, and of course plenty of ’home teams’ who always feature strongly at Expedition Africa.
For all that, there is no outright favourite, and the mix of racers and teams will make this one of the most interesting expedition races for a long time. And that’s not just at the sharp end of the race; there are many teams with great stories and their adventures will make compelling watching.
Let’s start with who are not there. Last year there was a great race between eventual winners Skylotec (Sweden) and Thunderbolt AR (Aus), but neither has returned. In fact there is a complete absence of Kiwis and Ozzies this time, but the strong link this race has with Scandinavia is still in evidence in the entry list.
Two of the very best South African teams, Sanlam Painted Wolf and Cyanosis AR, are not racing either, nor are Merrell Adventure Addicts present in their regular competitive World Series line up. Add to that the fact the line ups of the most experienced South African teams have seen some swapping around, and that the international visitors don’t feature any previous World Series race winners and the field is wide open. Place your bets!
The Merrell team are present with another ‘Merrell Mentored’ team, and this time Graham ‘Tweet’ Bird is the mentor, and he has his work cut out with 3 very young talented athletes to guide, all of them new to Expedition AR. The first day could be interesting for Tweet; “Slow (cough, gasp) down. It’s a long (gasp, cough) way!” Their mix of youth and athletic ability led by his experience could make them contenders though. (Several members of previous Merrell mentored teams are back racing in other teams too, which is great to see.)
‘Merrell Cancer Crew” have the same objective (to finish), but perhaps a different perspective. They are led by Donovan Sims and, as the team name highlights, are all cancer survivors out to embrace life and adventure.
Among the other South African teams the likes of Jabberwock, Castlelite, Keyhealth Nevarest, Plett AR and several others will be pressing for the podium or the win, and Sani Racing/Best 4 Sports have an on-form Robyn Owen in their line up.
From outside South Africa the Raid Gallaecia Fridama team, Powerbar Swiss Explorers, Omjakon and Team East Wind bring vast experience of World Series racing to the competition. There are several strong French and Swedish teams and R’adys/Endurancelife are a multi-national team with a long list of races between them.
All in all this year’s Expedition Africa promises to be a fascinating and engaging race to follow and we will aim to bring you news from the course and the teams over the coming week on SleepMonsters.
You can see the live tracking page for the race at http://live.arworldseries.com/africa18/
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