Revolution_May 2025_Edition 74 | Page 4

CEO’ s MESSAGE

The connection to rowing is Guy’ s daughter, Zara, an inspirational figure, who, in between graduating in physics and heading to Sandhurst Military Academy this autumn to join the army as a Technical Officer, decided she would row solo across the Atlantic. Now, many people have rowed across the Atlantic, either in groups as part of races or as individual exploits. The common route is from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean and that is no mean feat, but as all of us can see, this is from islands offshore of Europe to islands offshore of mainland America.( You may be wondering why I am in any way qualified to offer this perspective, and it is in fact due to my wife’ s family, who are a rare breed of Norwegian adventurers who have sailed and rowed across multiple oceans). Zara bravely decided to reject the conventional route, as described above, and instead to row the ocean from mainland Europe, Portugal, to mainland South America in Guyana – a distance of some 4,100 miles. I am delighted to record that she completed this distance in 97 days, 9 hours and 20 minutes, which is a magnificent achievement. The twist to the story is that despite Zara’ s heroics, my father-in-law Stein Hoff, remains the fastest rower over the same distance in 96 days, 12 hours and 45 minutes, which he completed in 2002 at the age of 67. Speaking to Zara at the Scramble, she is rightfully proud of being the only woman and the youngest rower to have completed the continent-to-continent rowing exploit, and my father-in-law was equally thrilled to see this photograph as he remains a great ambassador for those brave souls that row Transocean distances.
We are fully into the peak of our event season, with dozens of competitions every weekend, ably managed by our incredible community of volunteers across the whole of the country. It is only a couple of months until the British Grand Prix, when we call upon the help of hundreds of marshals who consistently ensure that the British Grand Prix is regarded by fans, and the professionals in the industry, as the pinnacle of the sport. But there are many other extraordinary events this summer, and one I would draw your attention to that is perhaps less well known is the FIA Eco Rally Scotland that will be held on the 26th and 27th July. The 2025 FIA Bridgestone Eco Rally Cup is at the forefront of new methods of propulsion and technology and is the perfect way of inviting pure electric vehicles into our sport in a highly relevant and engaging way. You may recall that a couple of years ago David Richards and I competed in such a type of event in Spain off the back of an FIA conference – and through some fluke managed to win the event outright – so I speak from personal experience that the combination of a regularity rally married to a power efficiency black box that measures the amount of electricity used by the vehicle, is a formula that I am sure has much broader appeal than the pure sporting side of the enterprise. So much so that we are seeing fantastic support from the vehicle industry, in a way that is no longer enjoyed unilaterally across club and national racing as we once had back in the pre 2000 decades. EVs have not really been seen of a sporting disposition, although there is something of a power arms race – where 0 to 60 acceleration times and copious amounts of power are a headline feature. But when
The 2025 FIA Bridgestone Eco Rally Cup will help encourage a new community of EV enthusiasts to participate in motorsport
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Revolution- May 2025
Craig T Parry