het was wederom DE MAX !
7 dagen in offroadhemel !
volgend jaar opnieuw !
Carl Reuters is de toffe engelsman die schrijft voor Landrover Monthly en de CT Blog
PROLOGUE
The Croatia Trophy always begins with a competition on the first day which determines the running order for the following day’s stage. This year the Prologue consisted of a predominantly fast and dry circuit with cars being released three at a time to race for position. Muddy areas made choosing the right line important and there was one potential 3-lane winching point made as slippery as possible by the organising team by adding thousands of litres of water.
Positioning yourself in the table of results for the prologue is something of an art. Make the fastest time and you’ll be first away tomorrow – but is that a good thing? You’ll be pioneering the route and possibly missing markers and making navigational mistakes, which will affect your stage times
Received wisdom from some experienced Trophy drivers has it you should aim to complete the prologue somewhere between tenth or fifteenth, where the route has been well defined by your predecessors and those in front of you will be fast and experienced so you won’t be held up. Or, what the hell, maybe it’s better just to go for it and leave the pack behind?
STAGE 1
Adrenaline levels plummet, testosterone drains away from the drivers’ right feet and the logical brain starts to function. Experienced competitors are used to this and are mentally prepared for a tough first stage. Less experienced drivers commonly exhaust themselves in the first couple of hours and spend the rest of the stage (and probably the whole event) wondering what they have let themselves in for.
Ah but, Stage One of the 2010 Croatia Trophy was even more cunning than that this year. Old hands had psyched themselves up for a blistering start straight into the deepest swamp the forest could offer but instead found themselves parading in an exciting procession of competitor vehicles, press cars and support vehicles through the centre of Glina, the local administrative capital. Glina suffered greatly during the war and this unusual event was a welcome sign that the town was once again back on the map. The local population was out in force to wave, photograph and greet their visitors. Kids practised their English. The camera function on people’s mobile phones had never been so useful. The ’show’ start was spectacular and the smiles on people’s faces made it all worthwhile.
Then, just as the old hands had let down their guard, relaxed a little too much in the perfect Spring sunshine and had even begun to notice the blossom on the almond trees (some were even trying to make silly cuckoo noises, if you can imagine that) – a typically vicious stage one was suddenly underway. Swamps that could swallow a truck, ravines ten centimetres too narrow for a normal offroad vehicle, winch-burning ascents, diff-hunting tree stumps hiding under layers of glutinous chocolate and plenty of opportunities for the press to photograph the undersides of some of the less fortunate vehicles.
The Croatia Trophy this year is clearly continuing to stake its claim as the world’s toughest Trophy event and I don’t think many of the exhausetd, red-eyed competitors today will be challenging that claim at the end of this year’s Stage One.
NIGHT STAGE
There’s something special and unique about Trophy night stages. I think it’s partly the smell of the forest at night – somehow more earthy and leafy – or perhaps it’s the fact that you’re surrounded by patches of impenetrable dark which suddenly leap into life as a vehicle crests a rise and turns black night into slices of day with a bank of 150 watt spotlights or razor sharp LED light bars.
The Night Stage is underway, you’ve got to think and move fast, you’ve got to be strong and determined and hard and the competitors are as psyched up as they ever were. It’s a famously tough event and these are famously tough people.
CIRCUITSTAGE
STAGE 5It must be OK to stand here, you say to yourself. Nice position for some good photos. Good sunlight pouring over your shoulder. No thorns in the bushes around you.
But when the Croatia Trophy Circuit Stage mass start of over sixty vehicles is about to get underway and the drumroll of over sixty barking engines rolls over you – you step back a couple of paces. The bearded Land Rover bloke with the pipe quickly gets up off his stool and suddenly looks a bit less of an expert
The leading cars scream past you filling it with crunchy dust.
The Circuit Stage is well and truly underway. Competitors negotiate a circuit of just under four kilometres multiple times, tackling creeks, ravines, ascents and swamps and doing their best to stay ahead of the competition. Because of the mass start the early laps can lead to exciting racing and, as the stage progresses, some spectacular overtaking moves can be seen as the leaders lap slower opposition
It’s loud. It’s multicoloured. It’s exciting. It’s fun. It’s fast. It’s great for spectators. It’s the Croatia Trophy Circuit Stage.
ingekort
STAGE 6Yes, Stage 5 already (Prologue, S1, Trophy Day, Circuit Stage and S5…) – and this is where the Croatia Trophy begins to BITE.
As I write this in the dark after a long day, there are still cars on the track who started at 9.30 this morning. In all that time you can bet they haven’t selected fourth gear even once
Jokes are cracked, the spirit of fellowship is strong – and then the very same people leap back into their cars and do their utmost to overtake the others on the first few metres of forest track.
Stage 5 also begins to bring home to you exactly why people call the Croatia Trophy the toughest event of its kind in the world. Nothing I’ve seen comes even close to this, and it’s only Tuesday.
STAGE 7Mud, mud and more mud. Black glue.
You haven’t got a chance against this mud. It’s the same mud that also grabs hold of powerful, speeding cars as they try to escape and easily brings them to a complete halt in a second
Angry engines scream in protest at being stationary. It makes no difference. The mud has got hold of its victim and a primeval struggle begins.
As I said yesterday, Stage 5 was tough this year. (Last night the organisers were still looking for one team of competitors 14 hours after they had started the 58 kilometre stage.) But, it seems, to cook up a delicious Croatia Trophy Stage 6 you need take all the ingredients of Stage 5 – gulleys, ravines, creeks, streams, near-vertical banks to ascend or descend and narrow winding tracks squeezing between trees – and simply add water. And the result? Yep. Mud, mud and more mud.
STAGE 8After a Stage Six that had to be cut short by the organisers when some of the tail-enders were only just past the half way point at 11pm and two checkpoint marshals towards the end of the stage had almost died of boredom, you would think there might be a slightly later and more humane start on the morning of Stage Seven? Hah. No chance
As I mentioned in the first of these blogs, the organisers address some of their health and safety issues by deliberately designing Stage One to be absolutely exhausting for all the competitors. This cunning plan reduces the risk of adrenalin-driven over-enthusiasm on the part of some of the drivers which can cause silly accidents in the subsequent stages. ‘Tire ‘em out, make ‘em weak as puppies and they’ll start thinking with their heads instead of other parts of their anatomy’ is the theory. Clever stuff. It actually works.
Respect. I don’t know how these people do it. Some of them, no, all of them, must be as hard as nails. The Croatia Trophy is one of the longest events on the Trophy eventing calendar but these guys (and girls – there are two female co-drivers who are amongst the very best competitors here).keep putting in an enormous athletic effort hour after hour and day after day. Many of them get virtually no sleep because they are repairing their vehicles every night, but there they are at the start every day, cheerfully cracking jokes, swapping insults and telling lies with their fellow competitors.
Mud, water, trees, logs, rain, the whine of hot winches, the howl of overworked engines, the seemingly impossible achieved and achieved impressively quickly by connected teams of exceptional individuals.
As a mere blogger and laptop poker with only normal amounts of human strength, I take my hat off to them – or at least I would if it wasn’t raining again.
deze dus enkel over de start gesukkeld en finito
http://www.croatia-trophy.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;As always towards the final stages of the Croatia Trophy, the leaderboard is well stretched out. This doesn’t of course mean much. This event is so tough on cars and people you never know what’s going to happen until the last second of the competition.
Vehicles which were immaculate showpieces a week ago now look like something you might see in Junkyard Wars. Take an immaculate 50,000 Euro show car, give it to a gang of delinquent teenagers for a week and it would still be in better condition than some of these vehicles. But they keep plugging on. Earlier today I was watching a car reversing fast up a steep ascent and through a long ravine because his rear winch was the only one still working. How he thought he was going to tackle the remaining forty kilometres of the stage I have no idea.
nd then the finale – the cleansing crossing of the river Glena to the finish line. Colours not seen for days magically appear on the cars again. Sponsors’ stickers suddenly start to advertise again, all just in time for the lines of photographers at the finish line. Cars emerge from the Glina in a burst of spray and applause. Tired smiles and stinging backslaps are followed by excited chatter and extravagant hand gestures as competitors re-live the stage and tell their stories.
mooi bericht hee, wat een modder.
