The AR World Championships - Costa Rica
Rules , Timings and Penalties
Rob Howard / 03.12.2013
As you might have picked up from all the reports there has been some confusion about rules and penalties, and the captains were given another update right before the race start. The main confusion was about the rafting dark zone, and whether time would be neutralized.
The final, final decision on this was that the dark zone would be enforced at the rafting stage from T8, and any teams who got through there would able to continue the following paddle and trekking stage. (That trek is the one with a lot of snakes, but it seems the dark zone there is for press only!) Those who are stopped won’t have their time neutralized now, so they will fall 14 hours behind those who got through.
Another change is there will be no neutralized time at the Superman Zip line, so if teams are held up queuing they will lose time. It is a very steep hill up to the start of the zip line, and the manager there said he would like to see the person who can ride up it! The flight takes a couple of minutes and they can put around 12 racers an hour down it, so there may be some waiting, and teams will be racing up that steep hill to get there first! He may get his wish.
Speaking to one of the race jury this morning I asked about the penalties and he told me that all those teams who were missing a back-up GPS at the start had managed to find one, so there were no penalties applied for that. (That’s good news, rather than having a bunch of teams starting the race with penalties over a misunderstanding.)
SleepMonsters
