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Thule are the winners of the ADAC for the fourth year

ANne-Marie Dunhill / 15.12.2010

After pre-dawn reconnoiter to check the conditions out at sea, the race direction decided to hold the last stage of the race in the bay in front of the Abu Dhabi Corniche as the swells were up to 2meters high on the open sea. The format lent itself to very fast paced racing with three loops of 11 km around the bay and out to Lulu island and three different check points on each loop at which all four team members had to punch in on the beaches together to validate the CP.

Speaking to different teams before the start of the section they spoke about their unexpected day off. Many had spent their time sleeping and eating but Nick Gracie’s mother lives in Abu Dhabi and they got permission to take a cab from Al-Mirfa to Abu Dhabi and spent the night at her house. It was an unexpected treat for Nick as he has not been out here in over 6 years and Mum’s home cooking is not standard fare in the middle of an adventure race.

When asked about their strong performance on the desert trek section Nick explained that with hindsight their strategy had been the right one: they decided to push past CP3 where the majority of teams took a part of their mandatory rest in order to make the most of the daylight hours, even though this choice meant that they were pushing hard in the hottest hours. He added that they had also decided not to go for broke on the mountain biking section leading up to the trek to preserve their strength and not “Kill ourselves for a 10 minute lead�.

In other news, romance has managed to wriggle its way into the gritty world of adventure racing in the form of a marriage proposal. James Wakefield of Al Maseer Racing asked Christine Rae to marry him on the beach of a previous section, having carried the ring with him throughout the race. Christine accepted.

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