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The Long Road to The Alps

Rob Howard / 06.09.2005

Every one of the 36 teams on the start line of Saturday’s Raid World Championship has earned the right to be there by racing in up to 4 qualification races on 3 continents.

There are no invites, no open entries, no ballots and when no teams qualified from two of the geographical zones their places were not passed onto others.

Through their skill and determination 36 teams from 16 countries have won the right to contest the Raid World Championship, and SleepMonsters has followed their progress throughout the year. Our reporters and photographers have been on the course at every race, publishing over 50 pages of live reports, and almost 200 photographs.

In Western Australia Kiwi super team Seagate (now renamed Balance Vector) showed a clean pair of heels to Les ARCS Quechua and AROC/Mountain Designs. It was close race, with the lead changing several times, and all of these teams will be among the race favourites in the Alps.

See the reports and photos by John-Michael Flynn and Mark Watson here.

In the arctic snowfields of Sweden Les ARCS Quechua went one better to win a race where the key skill was cross-country skiing. Even the Nordic specialists of Lundhags (Sweden), Multitude-Salomon (Norway) and Team Finland couldn’t match the skills of the French Alpine team. Les ARCS would not be beaten again in the qualifying races.

See the reports and photos by Jon Brooke here.

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