Team Digisource will take part in Navigate North rally

09-09-2015

Navigate North is a car rally right through the heart of Scandinavia until well above the Polar Circle. Some 40 teams of drivers and navigators take park in this event. It offers the teams a great challenge to see how they cope with exhaustion, setbacks and above all comradery. All in arctic conditions that we will hardly ever see in The Netherlands.

Team Digisource will take part with Peter Van Lent and Vincent Van Den Berg. One of the charms of the rally is that most teams collect money for charities of their choice. Team Digisource have chosen to support Breath Care for Kids.

Assault on endurance

Navigate North is all about navigating, finding the smartest route, teambuilding, clever driving.It's not about speed. The distances can be such, that the teams need to drive day and night to make it to the next stage. Usually under less than favourable conditions. Lots of snow, icy roads and temperatures well below zero. The thermometers can drop to minus 40 degrees centigrade.

This makes Navigate North a serious assault on the stamina of the teams. But not just on the drivers. Their vehicles will have to endure the extreme weather conditions. The teams will have to prepare their vehicles all on their own. This means many choices need to be made: snow chains or spiked tyres? Drive on petrol or diesel? And although the teams train vigorously, there are special training weekends, Navigate North is going to be one great and exciting adventure.

Smart navigation

Navigate North is far from a vacation. In seven days nearly 7 thousand kilometers need to be conquered to a destination north of the Polar Circle and back. Large parts of the journey will be driven on snow and ice. This will almost guarantee the teams to end up in extreme conditions. Smart navigating is required to find the most ideal route, or should we say least unfavourable route, by adhering to the official traffic regulations.

Different classification trials will have to be completed, which will in part determine the winners of each stage and the overall competition.

At the start of the journey none of the participants have any knowledge of the route. Just before the start of each stage each team will receive co-ordinates of the first check point. During the stage they will then receive details for the next check point and so on. By using road maps and satellite navigation every team has to decide the shortest or quickest route to each check point.

No speed race

Navigate North is not a speed race. It's first and foremost a challenge. Every contestant is obliged to stick to the local legal maximum driving speeds. The jury will check any disgressions of the maximum speeds with a track and trace system. Gross and/or repeated transgressions mean disqualification. Still, the rally is very competitive. The main element is finding the ideal route to cover the stage over the least amount of time and/or the shortest distance.