Day 4 – 25-02-2025

Full of anticipation for ice drifting, we planned an early start. But then came a shocking message: Team #93 had an accident. Their car was upside down in a snow ditch, and they urgently needed help.

Fortunately, we were only 15 minutes away and immediately called them to check if they were okay – we also set off right away. Luckily, both were uninjured but, of course, quite shocked. Several teams came to help, and together we managed to get the car back on its wheels and free it. Our “McGyver for cars” got the car back in shape, and Team #93 was back in the race. Nothing is impossible in this Race as long as we all help each other!

In fact, several teams had technical problems, ranging from oil changes to broken springs, from self-repairs to those that had to be fixed in garages. After checking out of the hotel, we finally wanted to go ice drifting on the lake, albeit two hours later than planned, but well, you can’t plan everything 😉 and safety goes first! The ice drifting was amazing and a great opportunity to really test our Land Rover with spikes. We used our drone to take cool shots.

In the coffee tent, there were cinnamon rolls, coffee, and cola. Around noon, we continued north, with a stop in Storuman for a lunch break with shrimp sandwiches and “Mega Topp” (like cream puff but sweeter and firmer). Here we also made a detailed tour plan – we decided against Bodø because a team member is not very seaworthy and instead wanted to head towards Bognes, where the crossing would only take an hour instead of four.

A motel near the ferry was booked by phone, as we would arrive after opening hours and needed to clarify that briefly. Then we bought Surströmming for the day’s challenge, which was to ride 100 km can open in the car… but we decided, quite selflessly, to give up on those points and leave the can closed out of consideration for our sister team McWell, who will need the car in May 😉

The drive through Lapland is breathtaking, and the closer we got to Norway, the better the weather and roads became.

At 6:45 PM, we reached the Arctic Circle, where we stopped for photos and searched for the globe in the dark to get the explicit Arctic Circle point. Another team from Flensburg/Schleswig was resting there and was about to grill. We continued driving in the dark over the pass and then arrived at our cabin in Tysfjord at 10:45 PM. After 11 hours of driving, 2 hours of roadside assistance, and 2 hours of ice drifting, we covered 714 kilometers that day. Tomorrow we continue to the Lofoten.