Stage Five

Yes, Stage 5 already (Prologue, S1, Trophy Day, Circuit Stage and S5…) – and this is where the Croatia Trophy begins to BITE.

If you’re in a hurry, 58 kilometres can seem a long way when you have to go to the shops on an asphalt road. Just think how long 58 kilometres feels like when it’s a succession of swamps, creeks, ravines, slippery ascents and treacherous descents linked together by a barely perceptible forest track between trees close enough together to take the paint off your car or the skin off your elbows if you don’t watch out.

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. Competitors arriving back at base camp weigh approximately the same as they did when they started. They have sweated away at least a couple of kilos but have at least the same weight of sticky black mud attached to them.

I have seen tough drivers nonchalantly sitting on their car engines making repairs in the middle of rivers with three quarters of the vehicle still submerged (and even tougher co-drivers diving for dropped spanners like ducks.) I have seen cat’s cradles of winch lines and snatch blocks in splendid trigonometry as teams of three or four cars spontaneously form to help each other across seemingly impassable obstacles. 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. Or perhaps they’re just trying to get away from the mosquitos…

A spectator must also be quite hardy and it’s not just the mosquitos. Getting through swamps to good vantage points has caused more than one spectator to lose a good boot forever in a hungry, sucking morass. The light Spring rain in the afternoon doesn’t seem to want to make you wet but then you quickly realise your clothes are sodden, your feet are squelching in your supposedly waterproof boots and your expensive camera has a funny blinking light you’ve never seen before. You complain for a second or two and then the next co-driver leaps athletically from his car with a winch strap and you realise he hasn’t even had time to clear the mud from his ears and eyes. You quickly stop feeling sorry for yourself. What you now feel is pure admiration for the strength and skill of these competitors in the unique sport of Trophy eventing. 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.

Carl Reuters