WILD RACERS :: WHAT IS ADVENTURE RACING? from NothinButShorts International on Vimeo.

This weekend (28-29 January) is the 150km Red Ants Rumble in the Magoebaskloof area. It’s organised by Team Red Ants and they’ve presented races in past years. As a team with a ton of experience from many, many years of racing you are guaranteed a challenging and interesting race. The race reports coming out of this are going to make for good reading.

The WCAD (Western Cape Adventure) bunch in Cape Town are getting things rocking in the Cape. They presented a number of events last year and are back with a series of races. Their first is on Sat, 4 Feb in Franschhoek and they’re offering two courses of 60km and 100km. Cast your eye down the calendar for their other events, which are scattered evenly throughout (see April, June, July, November).

The Senseless Summer Adventure on Sat, 11 Feb only just hits on my distance radar for their longer course option of 80km. The shorter course, which leaves out the optional checkpoints, clocks in at 50km to make this a friendly event with that little bit extra. It’s an hour outside Pretoria, which makes it easily accessible and Team Senseless have a bit of experience after presenting some events last year.

March (1-4) kicks off with the first of Heidi and Stephan Muller’s longer Kinetic events, the Kinetic Double Moon – our first >200km race for the year. It’s in the Vanderkloof Dam area of the Northern Cape, 200km South of Kimberley. And, as an event presented by this experienced pair, you’re guaranteed a well-organised event. All of the Kinetic events are unassisted and race crates and boats are provided so it is easy-peasy for you to take part. Later in the year are two shorter 120km Kinetic Full Moon events on 1-2 September and 27-28 October. Thoroughly enjoyable racing.

The Dark Horse 30hr race in the Drakensberg (starting from Bergville) will be a humdinger – good, classic, no-frills adventure racing with a well-planned and considered route. Clinton ‘Hardy’ Hardenberg is known for his solid ‘Ystervark’ races, which he first presented about two years ago. The Dark Horse will be in a similar vein. And being in the Drakensberg and presented by Hardy… you just can’t go wrong with this combination. Scheduled for 13-15 April, expect it to be chilly at night.

Expedition Africa is the big one on the calendar. It dominates the month of May (5-13).  Also organised by Heidi and Stephan, this year it is part of the Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS). The race will take you to the Port Alfred area of the Eastern Cape. Again you can expect this pair’s attention to detail and both their experience from racing and desire to show you great locations in the course layout. Good logistics and organisation at this race is without question.

August (22-25) presents the next blimp on my radar with Ugene Nel and Trevor Ball’s ‘Quantum Energy Leap‘ 250km in the Western Cape. These two old ballies have been racing together for over a decade (Team Energy). They’re tough, they’re gnarly and they’re wickedly devious so start sharpening up your navigation skills now. The promise of 26km of Grade 3 white water rafting has me sold. This event is also gloriously unsupported, which makes it convenient for racers travelling from up country.

So much to choose from! Decide now to definitely do one or two and rope in some buddies to join you. Sharing is caring.

Happy racing,

Lisa

As far as days 3, 4 and 5 went…

A post on the Red Bull Australia site says, “Day three was brutal for Rick Kelly and Ryan Sandes as, for the first time, they undertook all the optional checkpoints on top of an already-gruelling Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge race course. Team Red Bull now stands in 6th place overall, with two days to go”.

On Day 4 they has a couple of navigation issues. “After making up time on the leading teams, Team Red Bull’s Rick Kelly and Ryan Sandes endure a couple of misadventures that threaten to undo all the hard work they did to gain on the winners. The rope climb high above the treetops rattle Ryan’s nerves and both of them are shaken after their kayak capsizes in the final stretch. Despite everything, all the extra checkpoints were achieved and the Team is now placed 7th, with just one day left to improve their position.”

And on Sunday, the final stage, the site reports, “Team Red Bull placed 7th overall following the final day of the Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge. Rick Kelly and Ryan Sandes exceeded all expectations as debutante adventure racers and put in a top effort on this last, gruelling day, set in and around the city of Hobart.”

There are videos of the pair for each stage on the Red Bull site.

This five-day staged race began in Freycinet National Park and moved each day to a different location, taking in the Tasman Peninsula, Bruny Island and the Hartz Mountains before concluding with a race to reach nine different peaks in and around Hobart, Tasmania. 28 teams took part.

Their Day 1 went pretty well. The stage included orienteering, paddling, mountain biking, abseiling and running across a 55-kilometre course. Ryan and Rick crossed the line first, but they did not do the extra distance so missed out on the time credits the other teams gained. In a Twitter post Ryan says, “My 1st abseil today at the @SMWebberTasChlg ! Felt pretty good running down a mountain backwards!”.

On Day 2 the field started the stage by plunging from a boat into the icy waters of Fortesque Bay for a swim to the shores of the Tasman Peninsula. The 100 metre sprint left the teams shivering on the beach and in little doubt that they were in for another testing day. Next was an 11 kilometre paddle, followed by a tortuous 17 kilometre run, before a 17 kilometre mountain bike took them to the historic Port Arthur site.

I can’t quite figure things out from the race releases but seems that there were two run stages today (Day 2) and not one. Ryan and Rick mis-read the race instructions and didn’t pack their running shoes for the second run leg, a one-hour rogaine. So, Kelly did it in his bike shoes and Ryan did it barefoot. Their support crew team (I don’t get this either ‘cos the race is unsupported? must be the event crew?) rushed to the previous transition to fetch their shoes.

While many teams chase the time credits on offer for going to additional control points, Ryan and Rick opted for a more direct approach. And while they crossed the line first, it was Team Iron House still on the top of the results sheet at the end of the day.

“It was our fault that the shoes weren’t there, we just didn’t read the instructions carefully enough,” said Kelly. “It’s been a massive learning curve today. It was much more difficult than the first day.”

The event website is www.markwebbertasmaniachallenge.com

The Wenger Patagonia Expedition Race is considered the ‘last wild race’, crossing 720km of wind-blown steppe, marshland and ocean channels of South America’s southern tip.

In 2012, the race will feature Tierra del Fuego, with teams finishing at Cape Horn. Only 20 teams will be on the start line, with about half of them expected to finish.

To read more about this race, visit www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com. Team Cyanosis’ website is www.teamcyanosis.co.za and you can also follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/team.cyanosis.

[I spent three weeks at PER in 2005 and 2006 on the media team - exquisite! I totally fell in love with Patagonia and it remains the most wild environment that I've encountered. Lisa]

This staged race, which involves 70km per day of biking, kayaking and trekking will be separated by overnight full-facility camping. There’s also a dash of climbing and other surprise disciplines included on the course. Maps are provided so there is a navigation component but as it is classified as a multisport event I’d guess that competitiors in this race won’t do the cross-country navigation / vegetation crawling of the AR World Champs, which were held in Tasmania  a month ago.

Interestingly, this is a race for pairs and Ryan will be racing with Rick Kelly, an Australian V8 Supercar racing driver.

Race website is www.markwebbertasmaniachallenge.com or go to www.facebook.com/pages/swisse-mark-webber-tasmania-challenge.

Assisting Ugene is Trevor Ball. The pair have raced together for over a decade and Team Energy has always been a consistent performer. Having this duo planning a race… well folks, we’ve got a winner here.

WCAD had a 250km race on the cards for September, but with this announcement they’ve canned their race to lend support to Ugene’s event. The other, shorter, WCAD events will make for a great lead-up to Quantum Leap.

Entries will open in early 2012. We’ll get more information about the event then.

Freshly returned from Tasmania, Team Cyanosis – Marquest International’s Nicholas Mulder and Nathan Thompson speak to us about the AR World Champs in Tasmania. They placed 8th overall (out of 80-odd teams!)

Time is 18h30 for 19h00.

Venue is Kinetic Gear – cnr North and Rivonia roads.

There are drinks and meals from the Health Bar.

Special thanks to Heidi and Stephan for always being so willing to host AR Club evenings.

Everyone welcome; you don’t have to be an AR Club member.

www.arclub.wordpress.com