ITERA Ireland
Rootstock Racing in Dingle
Rob Howard / 20.08.2016
I caught with up with full course team Rootstock Racing of the USA at O’Connors Bar in Cloghane this afternoon as they prepared to ascent Mount Brandon for checkpoint 21.
The team were not just stopping off for a quick drink – the bar is the checkpoint and teams are going up from there to the summit of Mount Brandon and back down, again before continuing their bike ride. After so long in the saddle it was a welcome chance to stretch their legs, but with the mountain wreathed in cloud and the rain continuing it wasn’t the most inviting prospect. It’s a pity as the summit offers stunning views of all of the Dingle Peninsula.
The team are all very experienced racers, three of them raced in the World Champs in Scotland and Mark Lattanzi is a regular visitor to the ITERA race series so they are familiar with the racing conditions in the UK and Ireland. Whenever I’ve seen them on the road they’ve been close together, sharing the lead, and Jim Driscoll said, “Yeah, we’ve had some good formations on the ride.”
The team were upbeat and discussing how long the return trip would take, whether to eat before going and if they should ‘book a room’ for when they got back. In the end they settled on ordering some chips, though the landlord offered to cook what they wanted even though the kitchen was closed. He also brought out a clothes horse for them to hang wet things on while they were on the mountain trek.
I guess the team felt they would be more determined on the trek knowing dinner was waiting for them when they got back!
“We knew we were not going to make the ferry yesterday,” said Brent Freedland, “so we stopped and found somewhere to stay along the way. That means we don’t get the time credit, you had to check in at the ferry for the time-out to come into effect ... but then we’d have been arriving in the early hours and would not have found somewhere to stay. I think many other teams did the same, and it might only have been Godzone who got the full time credit of almost 10 hours – which will move them up the leaderboard.”
“We stayed the same place as Bob Kittens last night,” said Mark Lattanzi, “and although it was late the owners found us what food they could and we all eat together. I don’t think the Bob Kittens got enough sleep though as I think they checked in somewhere else today for some more recovery time!”
The team had clearly been enjoying the race – despite the weather! “The paddle on Lough Corrib was great,” said Lattanzi, “with all the islands and the calm conditions it was like a Scottish Loch – well until the wind got up at the end. We camped on an island on that stage. I liked the cave too – I love doing the different challenges.”
“I really like the beach trek which was the course change on the first paddle,” said Freedland, while Abby Perkiss and Jim Driscoll were fans of the first mountain trek in the Maum Turk mountains. “That was an amazing and wild area,” said Perkiss.
The team were wondering what was happening ahead of them and had seen Team Columbia Ireland on the road side using the phone.
I later found out this was to inform race HQ they’d turned back from the route across a pass to get them to the south of the Peninsula due to a high river they couldn’t cross. (With the prolonged heavy rains river crossings are getting increasingly difficult.) The team has now had to take a longer route around, and Godzone and Rootstock will have to do the same.
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