Arctic Trucks

We caught up with Gisli and Kenny yesterday, Gisli replaced one of the rear axle in his car but he had been loading the car with up to 2.5 tons which is way too much.   Gisli and Kenny then continued to set up the mid way Check Point, they took the competitors we picked up with them.   We are now driving towards the Check Point, we had to leave the snowmobile track as the Check Point is 60km to the east of it, the snow is very hard packed with lots of sastrukies that keeps the speed down   All the cars are much lighter now, we have the BBC crew with us and we will mostly follow the teams that are leading.  Gisli and Kenny will stay at the Check Point until all competitors have passed through there. 

There was a plane accident January 3rd or 4th, a plane from Novo was flying in spare parts to us the 400km point when something went wrong and they crashed not very far from us.  We were not allowed to tell about this at that time but no one got seriously injured, we drove to them and brought them to our camp where Deirdre took care of their wounds.  A day later another airplane came and picked them up and took them to Novo and then we continued towards the competitors.

Sunday January 11th, at 21:30

Hjalti

We will be with Gisli and Kenny in 2-3 hours, they need to do a repair to one of the car but have been taking it easy and are waiting for us.   We have picked up the BBC camera crew and the competition is going very well, we are though picking up the team that is moving slowest and are bringing them to the midway Check Point.   This will reduce the distance between the teams.

Saturday January 10th at 11:45 a.m.

Tony

Gísli and Kanny are now located 190 kilometers from Start line and they have 630 kilometers to go before they get to the South Pole. They have been transporting the film crew back and forth the way the competitors will be skiing. Some of the teams have been moving really fast, up to 50 kilometers pr. day, and Gísli and Kenny now have to start concentrating on servicing them. Therefore they have to leave part of the filming crew behind. They will wait for Hjalti and Tony which are now 700 kilometers away. Hjalti and Tony have not been able to drive fast for the last few days but now they are now driving into better conditions and hopefully they will be able to drive the last 700 kilometers faster.

Today we met the snowmobile-train, the Norwegian Antarctic Research Expedition conducting a science survey in Antarctica.  They started off from the Norwegian base last year towards the South Pole  and are now on their way back from the South Pole heading towards the fuel drop.   It was really special and enjoyable to meet them there.   We have now tried to drive in their track and it is really good, my fuel consumption is close to half compared to making the track, which is great as their track is going rest of the way to the Pole.   We are having a small problem with Kenny‘s car but I‘m working on it.   I heard from Hjalti and they are making a very good process so hopefully they will be with us within a few days.

All the best,  Gísli

January 6th, at 22:30.

Click here to go the webpage of the Norwegian Antarctic Research Expedition.

We are in good spirit, we have rested here at the start line today, I took some time to look at the cars and everything seems to be working fine.   Yesterday we drove 50 km south to film the competitors and then came back here.    The snow conditions are ok, still a bit heavy, and the first car can make the track doing 20 to 25 km/h with a fuel consumption approx 75 to 80 liters per 100km.   The second car that follows in the track has much lower fuel consumption but following the track does not allow us to go much faster as the track becomes very uneven.   Tomorrow we plan to take the film crew and some extra oil, 200km south and set up a new camp there.   We will leave them and go back to the start line for our crew and stuff the following day.   The fastest ski team is doing much more distance than anybody expected, during the first two days they have covered 100km and the distance between the first and the last team is already very big, this could impose a new challenge for us to be able to support everyone.   

Send everyone our best wishes. – Gisli.

January 5th, at 22:50

We are now finally back on track, we left the 400km fuel drop 50 minutes ago.  We are driving in Gisli‘s and Kenny‘s tracks, the track is full of snow but we can still see it.  It is a fairly easy drive but we are going 20-25 km/h.  

Sending our best – Hjalti

January 5th, at 19:20

The race just started,  the competitors are disappearing into the white right now.   We will stay here one more night  and I will use the time to bring more fuel from the old start line and further south. Hopefully Hjalti and Tony will be able to get here without problems but in case not I‘m now preparing for the scenario that Hjalti and Tony will not come.    The snow conditions around the fuel drop where very tough and even though it is a bit lighter here I‘m assuming the worst,  meaning the fuel consumption will be somewhat higher than we expected.  Around the fuel drop I could only do 5 km/h  when tracking ahead alone but with Kenny behind and using the push bar we could do 15 km/h.  Once the track is hard, it is easy to follow,  the fuel consumption falls drastically but less if the wind has filled the tracks with snow.    Still the hard track is often very uneven that really pushes the suspension.  One shock absorber in Kenny’s car got damaged but I managed to fix that quickly.   With only two cars and one trailer but having to carry equipment and people meant for 4 cars and 4 trailers, we will need to do many trips back and forth along the race line.  If the snow conditions will be very tough we will not have enough fuel to do this for more than a few hundred km.

January 4th, at 10:20.

Gísli Jónsson