Skrevet av: Kari Bjørkli Thomassen og Anita Føleide trans: TL
Dato: 11.03.2009 05:43
Roger Dahl took out one of his dogs from the team before he started out off Varangerbotn at 03.40. Fifteen minutes later Kjell Brennodden went to his dogs and began to prepare himself for the trip towards Sirma. As predicted Nina Skramstad, Trond Ørslien and Inger-Marie Haaland departed short after.
Dahl was modest about the comments of the stage towards Sirma. He didn't want to speculate about who would be the first team to want to try to follow him up. He worked concentrated with the dogs, chatted with them and made them ready for the cold trip into the night. In a short comment he said that the focus of this stage is; to let the dogs run their own tempo.
The question now is where he will rest the next time. Kjell Brennodden, which arrived at the checkpoint fifteen minutes after Dahl departed, thinks he will drive trough Sirma to take a rest in Levajok.
Other voices speculate that Dahl knows what his competitors expect, so they think he will take a rest in Sirma instead of driving trough Levajok. While the other leading groups will take their rests in Levajok. He would also drive passed those who sleep, so he can continue to control the head. But this is left to see.
It will be exciting to see if Brennodden is capable to drive passed the retired policeman. Brennodden says:
- We will see if we are able to do that.
Nina Skramstad is surer about that. She admits that she is really a winning person.
- A retired person of Alta is not going to hold me back. She says and looks back at Brenodden, that is just a bit longer in the race.
But she keeps to her plan. Even tough the main focus is to win; she also has to look after her dogs.
-A blinking light in front of me can only be a bonus.
Behind them there is also Inger-Marie Haaland working. She shouts that her dogs are still in a good shape, while she adjusts her sledge. Haaland is not scared to say she is a winning person also, and on the question if she is going to hunt the people in front of her, she answers:
- Of course I am going to do that!
Trond Ørslien had some problems earlier this morning, when he was on the point to drive out off the checkpoint for the next stage. The coating for his sledge for the new cold track, took too much place. Therefore he had to ask Harald Tunheim for help, which arrived a few hours earlier. They exchanged their experiences about the tracks. There should be bad conditions on a few places on the track to Varangerbotn. Harald thinks that were much stones, and that it would be worse later on.
Read more speculations about the front group on the Norwegian website: Altaposten