Southern Traverse
The Other Half of the Team
Susan McKenzie / 18.11.2004
Providing support requires patience (waiting for teams to arrive) and impatience (packing up gear swiftly to move from one TA to another), the ability to soothe (emotions can get frayed when you’ve been cold, wet and tired for 36 hours) and the ability to push (boot the racers out of the TA with brute force if necessary when they start to dawdle.)
It also requires calmness, serenity, organizational skills and that intangible sixth sense that deduces what a racer wants to eat and wants to wear. Navigational ability and bike mechanic skills are bonuses: teams that can arrive in a TA with the maps marked up and bikes tuned up can save hours.
A support crew can spend hours, sometimes even an entire day, sitting in a TA waiting for its team can arrive. It’s a nail-biting and worrying time not suited to the anxious worrywarts. It can also be a demoralising activity for teams at the back, as the lonely crews doing support for the last few teams sit and watch as, one by one, the other crews pick up stakes and move on.
“It’s so hard when you’re sitting and waiting to hear where they are, what they’re at,� says Microsoft IE’s Lyndy Leggett, whose husband Tim is racing with the unranked team. “You just keep wondering how they are, if they got down off the ridge okay.�
In a sense, doing support is a bit like being a goalkeeper. For most of the game you sit at the end of the field, preparing and anticipating a shot on net. When it comes, the adrenalin kicks in and you’re expected to anticipate the direction of the kick and react with immediacy and accuracy.
On an adventure race, support crews sit around for hours, unable to really relax or even get a decent sleep in case the team arrives. Then when the team arrives, they must spring into action, stripping off wet clothes, serving up hot (or not so hot) food, checking gear and gear lists in a flurry of movement, with a goal of getting them out of there fast.
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