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Balance Vector Blaze a Trail

Rob Howard / 14.11.2005

Almost all the media covering the race were at TA4, the start of the rafting stage, by 06.00 this morning expecting Balance Vector to be there ready to take to the water as soon as the dark zone lifted. The dirt road by the river was chock full of trucks and cars, and there were dozens of cameramen and journalists milling around. As all the teams were out in the Lyell Range on the first trekking stage there was nowhere else to go. But there was no leading team to interview or take pictures of …

Balance Vector had made such good progress on the early part of the trek, they were expected before 6am, but their pace had slowed and they arrive hours later than expected.

They’d pulled out a big lead during the night, helped by taking a smart route choice to CP6. The obvious route was to follow a track along a river valley, then stay by the river to reach the CP when the trail gave out. But Balance Vector chose to leave the track and climb up onto a ridge, then follow a spur down to the CP. Not the obvious choice, but it was almost 2 hours quicker!

Later in the night there was some confusion as the marshal who thought he was at CP7 wasn’t … he was some 4Km away! When he heard this on a midnight radio call Geoff Hunt pulled his cap down over his eyes and groaned. “I hate it when a checkpoint is 4 metres out of place!� he said. Balance Vector did find the marshal, as well as the original checkpoint, and the course was changed to make the original CP7 a ‘remote’ (unmanned) CP, with the marshal’s new location becoming the new CP7. However, the first 13 teams had passed CP6 before this news could be passed on, so there may be some time adjustments needed later on.

Balance Vector continued past the new CP7 and set off down the Lyell Ridge towards the Buller River, but their pace slowed in the darkness and the difficult conditions. Despite this they were running strongly when they jogged into the ‘media scrum’ at TA4 and looked in good shape. Fa’avae acted like an experienced politician and realised he need to make a short statement to keep the media happy!

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