- by Brian Byrne in Nevada
Paul running fifth, and feeling fit
22 April 2003: "I'll be going home much fitter, though I don't think I'll have lost any weight because we've been eating well," Paul McCarthy told me last night as he prepared for the last leg of the Land Rover G4 Global Challenge, in which he is lying a creditable fifth.
"I think this will be a very technical leg," he adds, with the savvy of three very different weeks on three diffferent continents. "But it is still anyone's contest, though the two guys at the top are very strong."
Paul is teamed for the last leg, across the Canyonlands in Nevada and Utah, with the Canadian entrant Kitt Stringer - who replaced the original selectee Jim Kuhn after he'd cut himself badly in South Africa. So far Paul has partnered the British, German and US entrants on the different stages.
Whatever happens, it has been the trip of a lifetime for Paul, a stonemason from Ventry, who has found himself doing things he never believed he could, from overland running through cliff-climbing to jumping into raging rivers.
And then there's the driving ... now on their fourth vehicle, the Discovery, the 16 contestants drive out today from the luxury of the City of Lights, Las Vegas, into one of the harshest, but most spectacular terrains in the United States.
It'll be a tough week on every count, and every point won, or lost, will count as they make their way to the final at Moab, the adventure capital of America, for Saturday.
I had brought Paul a couple of things I thought he might have missed - a Cadbury's easter egg and a slightly used copy of the Irish Independent.
"The chocolate will be useful," he grinned. The rest of Ireland and its problems seem very far away just now.
©2003 irishcar.com