Hi, this is Pat Norwil with the Crocodile Trophy; we've been three days in the Outback — no facilities to speak of. Just a lot of hard riding on roads. This is definitely a roadie race and three days ago we did a pretty nice 165 kilometer race, or stage, and it ended with 45 kilometers of pretty good singletracks and fairly technical stuff. And the roadies, they did okay, but you could tell they weren't that technically that efficient. I ended up finishing about 8th place, I felt good about that. We camped at a homestead, the last three nights we've been camping at homestead and cleaning ourselves after the dusty stages in shin-deep rivers.

Everybody's spirits have been pretty high, the food sucks. The organization is a joke; Gearhardt says one thing, we do another thing. Yesterday's stage — God, I can hardly remember, like every day is something new — yesterday's stage was 165 kilometers, predominantly roads — dirt devil tracks and pretty wide dirt roads, they're rough as a cob. You know, the Fuji guys are pretty much dominating the race still. Simon Apperloo from the Netherlands was first, or was second, and Roger Smeets was first. And then we just kind of pick up the crumbs as we go.

These guys are phenomenal. I mean, when it comes to the road, it's incredible. With things like today, we did 100, I think it was a 170-kilometer stage and it was the most technical of all the stages we've done so far. They were pretty awesome. I finished 90 kilometers of trail in third position. And then we hit 40 kilometers of asphalt to ride to the town of Meribe in. I went from 3rd place to 6th place. These guys get together and they're just phenomenal. They're fast, they work as a team, they don't drive alone. Their doom is to drive alone. I drove 120 kilometers by myself in the mountains. Sixth is still good, but it's frustrating. I come off the mountains and I'm in 3rd place.

By all rights, the stage should have ended there. I mean, everybody was hammered. The depots, or the stations with the water were way too far away and we all went in the heat. It was about 85 and kind of a mix of the slickrock and the white-rim trail today, and throw in a little bit of the porcupine ridge. That's what it was like today. It was pretty spectacular, it was wonderful to be in the mountains. Finally to actually start climbing some hills instead of looking down these straight dirt tracks and just eating dust from all of the support vehicles. It was good.

I'm happy with 6th, but this is a roadie's course, this is a roadie's race. A mountain biker would just be totally frustrated and I am frustrated right now. He's just pretty much catering to the roadies. Carrie hit a hard day. She flatted four times and went over the bars, dislocated her shoulder. But she seems to be pretty good, she relocated herself and continued on. Between the first checkpoint, which was at the 40 kilometer mark, to the next checkpoint which was at the 90 kilometer mark, there's nothing. No support, the trucks couldn't follow us it was so narrow and rough. So everyone was on their own and it's 9 o'clock in the evening and people are still rolling in. So it's been a long, hard day for a lot of people. Anybody that rode semi-slick today was a fool. It was an off-road race today. Finally, we do some off-road riding.

Carrie did well. You know, she's still wearing the leader's jersey. Just amazing, these Europeans, they're just blown away with her ability. She's running a really smart race, she's getting in a good group and working together. Although she drove the last 40 kilometers on the asphalt today with Angelino and this Austrian woman who's come in to do the light race, she just comes in for the last seven stages and she couldn't get them to work together so she struggled in the headwind like the rest of us — alone. It was tough...tomorrow is an easy stage, about 105 miles and mostly double track and dirt roads. I think we do about 60 miles on the blacktop. The blacktop sucks...it just totally sucks. And then we go to dirt roads, we'll be in the Outback again tomorrow, camping.

I'm kind of being really consistent, finishing in the top-11 every day. 11th, actually, every day. I think my best day was today with 6th place, and then two days ago with 8th place. But pretty consistent with 11th, and I don't know what I am overall. I think I'm 12th or 11th overall. There's 9th place, 10th place, 11th and 12th place are all within seconds of each other. So it's going to come down to the wire.

Two days from now, we do a really technical section. They're saying that it's the hardest section, or trail, stage of the race. I hope so. And it's supposed to be all dirt and single-track and sand to the finish. So maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe I can make some more of these Fuji guys hurt. It's funny, because they never want to talk to me but today they wanted to talk to me — in English. I never even knew if they could speak English, and now they're all talking. So I think I gained a little respect today. And I drove the leads quite a bit, today, too. So I had a good day, it was good.

But I'm tired, time to go to bed. That's all for now.

— Pat Norwil, MountainZone.com Correspondent