Open Letter to All the Participants of the Expedition Trophy Race
24.01.2006 12:50
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With the beginning of the New Year we all started to feel time run faster. Now it is the moment to reveal a little what awaits you, participants, in the new adventure named “Expedition Trophy 2006". At our forum and during “live” conversations with former, present and potential participants of ET we hear accusations that we never open the details of what is ahead of those who accepted the challenge of Expedition. We get compared to Dakar and other speed-and-time competitions where all the rules become known months before the race begins. We are different and we like it. Expedition Trophy is an adventure, and as any real adventure, it implies intrigue and unpredictable turns. That’s what happened last year, that’s what will happen this year. Of course the race has regulations and a precise and detailed description of all the tasks at every stage of the race. But only before the very start of each stage the participants will learn what they’ll have to face. Now our task is to tell you more about the new principles and conditions of “Expedition Trophy 2006". The basic principle of the competition remains the same — “Expedition Trophy 2006" is a team adventure. All the tasks at all stages, except for the final challenging point, will be given to a team, consisting of 2 crews. But unlike the previous race, now the crews will form into teams freely before every stage, after the results of the previous one get to be known. There will be no reserve participants but the teams will be able to find a crew in case their partner-crew drops out of the competition for any reason. If the number of crews is uneven, we will provide the team with our crew, created by the Organizers for that purpose. It will be an off-prize crew, whose role will consist only in substituting a partner-crew in order to fulfill the race tasks. Just as it was in the previous race, to define the winner of the Golden Prize we will not select the best teams by the stage results, but eliminate the teams that will not pass into the next stage of the competition. Only 8 crews will have the chance to fight for the Expedition Gold at the final step — the final challenging point. This year we will have 5 off-road Challenging Points:
Besides CP, there will be time-separated off-road starts during the longest race stages — in Khabarovsk on the ice-hammocks of the Amur, and in Novosibirsk. The elimination of the teams won’t be happening according to the results, shown at the Challenging Points, but the results shown at the whole stages. But the teams taking the last places at the CPs will become the first candidates for elimination. They will have a chance to remain in the race only if they finish up the stage among the winners with the best results. It is a new rule of the Race — the team gets the chance to prove that their failure at the CP was only an unfortunate accident. The prolonged competitive stages tasks will be based on the Art of Navigation project — we have more than 500 points of historical and cultural importance spread along the whole route. The rules and conditions, according to which the racers will search for the Art of Navigation points, will be announced only before the start of each stage. The race will also contain elements of classical navigation and our “specials” — controlled penalty zones, train chase, communication with the locals in order to get the necessary information. In case the team drops out of the Golden Pass, it may still continue the race fighting for the “Art of Navigation” or “Expedition” prize. So the off-golden-prize team will drive the prolonged stages on the same conditions as the winning teams. But the teams that dropped out will not be able to pass the CPs. To keep the teams, fighting for different prizes, equal in rights, we developed a special procedure: the teams that fell out of the main Pass will choose a team, that’s still in the Golden Pass at captains’ briefings. They receive the task for the stage together, after the latter team passes the CP. As in the previous year, there will be neither penalty points nor accumulated advantages. There will be no protest system, as it is in sport. We don’t judge or punish you, we only create conditions that identify the best of you. From the very beginning till the very end it is your adventure. The stages of the Expedition Trophy Race that comply the Golden Pass and the dates are the following:
Stages of the Art of Navigation Pass:
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