Preview is onlly 29 pages. Book contain 108 pages and 250 photos. I hope you will like it!

But (always is one) people from Croatia must buy it from author, or in the book order (on Blurb site) you must give the delivery address from Slovenia or Italy.
THEY DO NOT DELIVER TO CROATIA!

Click book for details.

Croatia Trophy 2009 by Damir Pildek | Make Your Own Book

It’s all a question now of making it through without something breaking either in the car or the people. Somehow, people you really think are going to make it onto the podium only seldom do so in Trophy events. Duct tape, baling wire, shoelaces and bits of old winches hold together many of the remaining vehicles in 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.

And they’re off. Stage Eight, the final stage of the Croatia Trophy is underway. It’s a brutal fight to the finish. Mud again, of course, in infinite variety. Mud in glistening, dark, oily rivers. Mud that clings to you in lumps the size of a loaf of bread. Mud that levels the field and enables long, slow overtaking using winches and a different path through the swamps. Mud that turns all the cars and the competitors exactly the same colour and forces marshals to wipe off the numbers to check vehicles through their checkpoints.

And 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.

And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen – enough stories from me, your humble Croatia Trophy blogger. I hope I may just have brought this unique and fascinating event alive in your imaginion through my words. See you next year for Croatia Trophy 2011…

Carl Reuter

FINAL ORDER FOR CROATIA TROPHY 2010

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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

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Mud, mud and more mud. Black glue. Mud that sticks to your boots until you have to stop and poke it off with a stick or it feels like you’re walking on heavy stilts. Mud that hides quietly under an innocent carpet of last autumn’s leaves, waits for you to pass by and then swallows your leg. 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. Desperate tyres spin, spit and spray but get nowhere. 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.

Co-drivers pop out of cars like rabbits out of a hole, winch straps in hand, looking around for likely winching points. Calm but urgent bluetooth discussions take place through helmet microphones and, when these don’t seem to be working, energetic hand signals and a few old fashioned colourful expressions at full volume get the communications flowing nicely. What follows is some hard wading and slipping and sliding and hard hauling of winch lines for straight pulls or quickly improvised pulley systems to double pulling power, all in an effort to escape the clinging, determined, predatory, dark chocolate mud. And then, when you’re finally free after an epic battle, there’s, yes, more mud to come.

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.

Carl Reuters

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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

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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. You can see he’s a bit worried. He has put his pipe in his jacket pocket and you know it’s still burning.

Suddenly the roar magnifies and a hundred tons of hot metal hurtles towards you. You step back even further, bump into the bearded Land Rover bloke with the pipe who has somehow already got behind you and you’re grateful for a nearby thorn bush you can step into. You don.t know whether to turn and run or take photographs or take cover behind a tree or just pray. In the end you do nothing except open your mouth in amazement.

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. Everyone has to come into the pits once for a wheel-swapping task which can take anything from five to ten minutes and almost always radically changes the leader board positions.

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.

RANKING

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Competitors, already muddy and fatigued by a full Trophy day, get a couple of precious hours to eat something and maybe take a quick nap. Well, let me correct that  – the lucky ones do. Other less fortunate teams need every minute of the time between their Trophy Day stages and the Night Stage to work on their cars. You see them dropping with tiredness, smeared with old oil, spanners hanging out of their pockets, glugging at water bottles, cramming down bananas and still wearing their encrusted boots – and then you see all that fatigue magically melt away as they wait for the marshal to wave them off and the adrenaline tap is turned fully on again. 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.

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Good Trophy competitors, almost by definition, need to be good team players. Drivers, co-drivers, mechanics and support teams cannot function as individualists and all need to work with the large and complex organising team for the event. In Trophy events competitors also need to work regularly with other competitors during various stages in order to maintain and improve their position on the leader board.

Sometimes this simply takes the form of one driver do a fellow driver a favour by winching them out of a difficult situation, or indeed merely acting as a winching point when none other is available. Sometimes it means raiding your precious store of spare parts to help someone continue after a breakdown. Sometimes it’s even offering a few words of wisdom to someone new to the event..Lasting friendships form between teams who are at the same time trying their utmost to beat other team and the spirit of cooperation lives side by side with the spirit of competition. This gives Trophy eventing its unique character.

Trophy Day, always held on a weekend day and in a fairly accessible place to allow visitors to get a feel of the real excitement of this kind of offroading, this year required competitiors to complete two difficult mini-stages in teams of five vehicles and, only when the team elements are completed, a third and final individual stage follows.

Imagine getting five vehicles across a river, two of which have to cross on logs winched into place by the rest of the team. Precision winching, delicate manoeuvring, bursts of raw speed and power, co-drivers leaping around like the prime athletes they are. Imagine seemingly impassable swamps successfully negotiated because of linked winch lines and snatch blocks. Imagine a Hungarian having to communicate urgently and efficiently with a Belgian or a Russian or an Englishman or a German – and hand signals and incoherent shouts are the only language they have in common. Imagine mud flying, the exquisite bellowing of a V8 engine with the pedal to the metal, the singing of winch lines and the oohs and aaahs of excited spectators.

Begin to imagine this and you begin to get a feel for Trophy Day at the Croatia Trophy.

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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.

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“CROATIA TROPHY 2010
E T A P E  1  ”
RANK    START No.    NAME    STATE    VEHICLE    START    FINISH    TOTAL
1   59    BOROS CSABA & ZOLTAN KONYA           H    JEEP WRANGLER            2:26:00
2   40    HARALD SEYFRIED & DIETER GILNREINER  A    JEEP WRANGLER         2:29:00
3   69    THOMAS SHUKER & JASMIN MOLL          D    MERCEDES G            2:31:00
4   52    MARTIN STAMPFER & THOMAS GRUBER      A    MERCEDES GE           2:37:00
5   72    JANEZ SLAVKO KRIVIC & DARKO GORIUP   SLO  PUCH 230 GE           2:39:00
6   41    MARIO ECKHARDT & CHRISTIAN DROSS     D    JEEP WRANGLER         2:48:00
7   87    PETER WHITMAN & ADRIAN TURNER        GB   D&G MITSUBISHI BUGGY  2:50:00
8   73    ROK PETELIN & LUKA PETELIN           SLO  JEEP WRANGLER         2:52:00
9   81    ZORAN ŠVEC & MARKO HORVAT            HR   SUZUKI  SAMURAI       2:58:00
10  48    SERGEY SAVENKO & ANDREY RUSOV        RUS  AUTOCAM 2160          2:59:00
11  91    BURKHARD EGGEMANN&DENNIS NEDOBITKIN  D    TOYOTA MOG            3:05:00
12  35    GUUS ALBREGTS & JORIS TREURNIET      NL   LAND ROVERDEFENDER 90 3:06:00
13  64    RALPH KRÜGER & NORBERT BENTENRIEDER  D    JEEP WRANGLER TJ      3:17:00
14  85    LORENZO SAVINI & ROMEO MANZAN        I    LANDROVER  DEFENDER90 3:20:00
15  58    HENDRIK DE NIJS & ANDRIES DE NIJS    B    jEEP CJ 7             3:21:00
16  66    ROBERTO MAZZEGA & MORENO SEGAT       I    JEEP WRANGLER         3:25:00
17  51    ALEX WEIRUM & MAX HANSEN             DK   NISSAN PATROL  GR     3:39:00
18  38    GORDAN KROTA & IVO BRGODAC           HR   JEEP WRANGLER            3:42:00
19  63    PETER SCHWARZ & HERMANN BECK         D    JEEP WRANGLER YJ      3:48:00
20  57    EDWIN DER MAAS & JOHAN DER MAAS      NL   JEEP WRANGLER         3:53:00
21  83    BOGDAN OPREA & GABRIEL PETZALIS         RO   JEEP WRANGLER         4:01:00
22  88    KEVIN MALLIA & DEREK SALIBA          M    MARUTI SPECIAL        4:08:00
23  92    WOUTER TYBERGHIEN & JOOP BARTEN      B/NL LAND ROVERDEFENDER 90 4:11:00
24  65    WALTER KLÖSS & MANUEL SCHREIBER      D    JEEP WRANGLER YJ      4:25:00
25  44    MICHAEL TRATTNIG & BERTRAM PANSY     A    PUCH 280 GE           4:38:00
26  82    MAURICE FARRUGIA & MARIO XUEREB      M    LAND ROVER DEFENDER90 4:39:00
27  47    WALTER SCHUHMACHER & SIGI HAIDEGGER  A    JEEP WRANGLER         4:54:00
28  80    ANDREI MUSETEANU & ALEXANDRU BOJICA  RO   MERCEDES G            5:04:00
29  54    PREDRAG VINKOVI? & MARIO PERIŠA      HR   PUCH 280 GE           5:08:00
30  42    CHRISTIAN POPRASK&CHRISTOPH KRAMMER  A    MITSUBISHI PAJERO     5:16:00
31  50    WOUTER VEKEMAN & STIJN VEKEMAN       B    DAIHATSU ROCKY        5:20:00
32  61    SZYLARD MAGYAR & KRISZTIAN KOVACS    H    MERCEDES G            5:25:00
33  74    DORI SELIŠKAR & MARKO MISSON         SLO  JEEP UNIMOKEE         5:39:00
34  78    MARKUS OSE & RICHARD WESKOTT         D    POLARIS RZR           5:42:00
35  43    NICO LADANG & WERNER OST             B    JEEP AMC CJ 7         5:53:00
36  39    PAUL VAN DER LINDE & MARK JANSEN     NL   LAND ROVER DEFENDER90 5:57:00
37  79    DRAGOS OSTAFI & RAZVAN LASCU         RO   TOYOTA RJ70           6:12:00
38  84    LAUR VALENTIN TURCANU & MARIUS LUPU  RO   JEEP CHEROKEE         6:22:00
39  30    NICO VAN WINGEN & BRUNO BOES         B    YAMAHA  RHINO            6:24:00
40  76    ARTURO BIAGIONI&GABRIELE CALICETTI   I    SUZUKI  SAMURAI       6:30:00
41  46    RON WILDEMAN & SANDRA BERKHOUT       NL   NISSAN PATROL         6:38:00
42  32    SYBOLT BURINSMA & TJARKO OCKERS      NL   LANDROVER DEFENDER90  6:53:00
43  49    PETER ARENDS & PAUL DE HAAS          NL   LANDROVER DEFENDER110 7:15:00
44  89    FRITZ BECKER & DOMINIQUE TRAFOIER    D    TOYOTA                8:15:00
45  70    CARL BUTTIGIEG & JOSEF BORG          M    LANDROVER DEFENDER100 8:15:00
46  62    STEPHANE ZOSSO & STEPHAN BERGER      CH   JEEP WRANGLER JK      8:15:00
47  56    IGOR CHERNENKO & VLADIMIR KRECHITOV  RUS  TOYOTA LAND CRUISER72 8:15:00
48  67    STEPHAN FÄRBER & SUSANNE FÄRBER      D    JEEP WRANGLER TJ      8:15:00
49  71    ERIK ŠPACAPAN & DEJAN MERVI?         SLO  JEEP WRANGLER YJ      8:15:00
50  60    GUY REFAEL & ILAN SHOSHE             IL   JEEP STORM            8:15:00
51  34    AXEL BURMANN & TOM OLIESLAGERS       B    JEEP WRANGLER        10:15:00
52  36    HRVOJE BARTOLI? & BORIS MICEK        HR   LANDROVER DEFENDER90  DIS
53  55    ROB MIERAS & MARCEL KONING           NL   LANDROVER DEFENDER90  DIS

“CROATIA TROPHY 2010
ADVENTURE    E T A P E  1  ”
RANK    START No.    NAME    STATE    VEHICLE    START    FINISH    TOTAL

1  21    YURI SELIFONOV & ALEXANDER NADKIN     RUS    MECEDES G 350DT      1:56:00
2  22    ROBERT GALL & EDWIN BERGER            D      SUZUKI SAMURAI       2:41:00
3  20    STEVEN OMBLETS & ALBERT OMBLETS       B      SUZUKI SAMURAI       5:16:00
4  23    JOHN JONGNEEL & PETER JONGNEEL        I      LANDROVER DEFENDER90 5:38:00

“CROATIA TROPHY 2010
ATV    E T A P E  1  ”
RANK    START No.    NAME    STATE    VEHICLE    START    FINISH    TOTAL

1  13    EDWARD SWIDZINSKI       PL      YAMAHA GRIZZLI 700                2:43:00
2  14    JAROSLAW MALKUS         PL      HONDA RINCON 680                  2:43:00

“CROATIA TROPHY 2010
ATV ADVENTURE    E T A P E  1  ”
RANK    START No.    NAME    STATE    VEHICLE    START    FINISH    TOTAL

1  10    BAS DONDORP    NL    ATV SUZUKI KING QUAD 700                  3:55:00