AR World Championship 2005
In Transition
Rob Howard / 16.11.2005
Last night the support crew for Salomon GB had to wait right through the hours of darkness for their team to come in off the trek. But it almost didn’t happen that way …. The team had made good progress and thought they’d found a track which lead all the way to the transition area, but it petered out and they’d completely lost their position. After searching in vain for a way forward they camped for the night with Team Orion and at daybreak found they were 5 minutes from camp! Orion were more upset about this as they have a motor home, Salomon would have been camping out anyway!
“The team are looking OK,� said Tim Lloyd, “and Nick (Davies) feet are not so bad now. The work they did preparing and looking after them on the trail is paying off.� He added that Neil Gellatly of Montrail was in a bad way with his feet. “Three medics worked on them for 45 minutes,� he said, “and said they’d never seen anything as bad.� With continuous wet conditions underfoot many racers are suffering from a form of ‘Trench Foot’ and the medical team are busy. They say the racers are remarkably polite!
The other British team, Aberdeen Asset Management, has passed through transition earlier, and they too had slept out on the course. They didn’t bother with a tent, but just slept on the track, and fortunately got up and moved on 5 minutes before one of the regular rain showers began.
With so much wet kit one problem the support teams face is drying it off, and driving with the heaters on full blast will only achieve so much. Today most are going into Reefton, where there is a queue for the dryers at the local camp site. The quiet main street has many parked vehicles and motor homes with canoes on top and the cafes are a little busier than usual. Most of the crews don’t expect their teams in again until later tonight, and then it’s only a 15 minute drive from TA7 to the new TA8, so they’ll probably be back into town in the morning again for breakfast!
SleepMonsters
