The Opening of The Beast

Carrick Armer / 04.08.2017

The opening day, or at least the opening evening, has been as fast and furious as we anticipated.

After a short missive by the Race Director, the countdown began on The Beast for 2017, and the teams hared off up Ballymacool park, the short opening run serving to split the mass of racers up a small amount. A front bunch formed, with 24H Meals, Columbia Ireland and Moxie Racers leading the charge into the first bike.

A couple of CPs through the backroads of Donegal and onto Lough Fern, and the front was largely unchanged. Moxie racers were the first onto the water, shortly ahead of the Swedish, with Roe Valley in third, Columbia fourth, ad Delta Denmark, Voodoo Performance and Dogleap all hot on their heels. The paddle changed a couple of fortunes slightly though, Voodoo Performance and Dogleap both put the power down on the lough, and returned in third and fifth, having been sixth and seventh on the water. 24H meals maintained second place but dropped a little time and paddled into the transition with three members of the team in the front boat, towing Stefan Silfver in the leaking second boat.

The next longer bike leg took the racers north east, over the hills and onto roads regularly used in Irish Rally stages. A long climb took them up to a viewpoint overlooking the beaches at Portsalon, and down the steep zig-zagged descent to the back of 'one of the most beautiful beaches in Ireland' - standing at the viewpoint CP, it was hard to disagree with whoever had decreed that one.

As the night wears on, through the northernmost part of the course at Fanad lighthouse, Moxie are holding their lead with their chasers shifting between themselves. Roe Valley have worked their way up to second, pushing the Swedish team down into third. Voodoo Performance missed a CP in the darkness and lost 20mins going back for it, shifting them back to 4th. Columbia Ireland are putting in a strong push to bring themselves back towards the podium.

With the 4am cutoff the teams further down the rankings will be thinking hard about how hard they push and whether there are any non-mandatory CPs they can skip - albeit at a time penalty - to allow them to stay on the full loop. The leaders are heading for Murderhole and the intertidal island and then on to Ards Forest Park, where they may be in for a small surprise...

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