Stage Seven

After 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. Late starts are obviously for wimps. Furthermore, a little bird told me Stage Seven was originally planned to be Stage One but the stage order was swapped around to accommodate a late invitation from the Mayor for the show start in Glina. To anyone who knows anything about the devious minds of organisers of Trophy events, that sets the alarm bells ringing. (And , believe me, Igor and An?elko are famously devious. Nice guys but wonderfully evil at the same time, if you know what I mean.)

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.

I guessed, therefore, that if Stage Seven really was originally intended to be Stage One, it was surely going to be exceptionally tough – and I was right. Softened up by two long previous stages combining over 110 kilometres of difficult terrain, those competitors who have remained in the competition, perhaps half of the original entry numbers, had to withstand the body blow of a third inhumanly tough, muddy and long Stage Seven.

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.

Stage Seven, as anticipated, turned out to be more, much more, of the same. 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.

Carl Reuter