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Leaders Race For The Mid-Camp

Geocentric / 23.02.2006

Arriving at Corinna the leading teams had only a little time between them. In a race such as this one, a lead of 1 hour is good, but at the same time this will need to be maintained for many, many kilometers and several days to come still.

The first four teams spent as little as 1-2 hours at the Corinna TA and had had at most 2 hours sleep since the event started some 30 hours or so earlier. These teams left Corinna with their eyes firmly set on the mandatory 6 hours at Gowrie Park mid-camp, but that would be still 153kms away. Although treated to some sealed road and nicely graded track until Waratah, teams were in for a surprise after that as severely washed-out tracks and thick scrub proved very tough to contend with.

During Leg 6 at CP10 in Waratah, AROC/Mountain Designs maintained the lead by an hour and a half, still closely followed by OrionAdventure.com and Checkpoint/Thorlo/Carboshotz but with only about 20 minutes between these two. In all, less than 3 hours separated the first four teams.

Team AROC/Mountain Designs arrived at Gowrie Park mid camp 2 hours earlier than they had initially anticipated, clocking in on Friday at 2.47am. They headed straight for their freshly cooked hot breaky and then dived into a bunk room to catch a couple of hours rest ... well needed by the sounds of some very heavy snoring!

They found most of the ride from Corinna fairly good with straightforward navigation ... until hitting the last quarter or so! Here very thick scrub and tracks that ended suddenly had them stumped and circling for some time, as it will most probably do the same for everyone else.

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