Red Bull Race Down to the Middle of the Earth
15 February 2003, Sondershausen

"It was far and away the coolest race I have ever been in; none of us here will ever forget it!" said Cedric Gracia after his victory in the “Red Bull Race Down to the Middle of the Earth” in February 2001. These memories will be refreshed again to quite a considerable extent on 15 February 2003!
Hardly any of the coordinates of the race will change. It goes without saying that the winners of the 2001 race, Anne Caro Chausson and Cedric Gracia, are right at the top of the invitation list. It will all be happening again on 15 February 2003: the 16 best men in the world and 8 top women in Downhill and 4-Cross will be lowered 700 metres into the earth’s belly in pitch-black elevators. When they get down there, they will compete against one another under truly diabolical conditions in a dual elimination contest on their own journey to the centre of the earth: dark and narrow shafts lit only by weak lighting, licking flames, heat and jumps! The steep and demanding route requires absolute skill and a lot of courage from the riders.

www.redbullracedown.com
The web site www.redbullracedown.com will go online in mid-December to introduce the Downhill and 4-Cross greats who will be going down the shaft of 15 February. It will also contain information on the race sequence, the route and of course about the Adventure Mine in Sondershausen too.
News will run across the web site in the form of a news ticker with the latest info on the athletes, the status of the route construction which is to start in February and everything else that happens during the preparations for the Red Bull Race Down. A photo gallery and video archive will allow internet viewers to experience the race too.
What will be new this time is that people will be able to apply for a limited number of tickets for the event through the web page! The creative and convincing reasons they give will decide whose names appear on the guest list!
The goal is to have the genuine downhill freaks on the spot along with the invited media so that they can experience the race at close quarters. There will be celebrations after the race: Europe’s deepest and hottest party – 700 metres closer to the centre of the earth.


"Red Bull Race Down" to the centre of each individual’s own ego.
The personal challenge for every athlete
Speed, physical strength, perfect curve technique, successful jumps and skill will not be the only criteria required to get the mountain bikers onto the winners’ podium at the "Red Bull Race Down to the Middle of the Earth". A new dimension has been added: the mental stress of dealing with the ambient conditions will be a decisive factor for success! What you have to bear in mind with this special “downhill” race is that it doesn’t actually involve racing down a hill from a high altitude, it’s real depth that has to be dealt with! The starting point lies 700 metres underground and a difference in depth of approx. 100 metres has to be overcome on the kilometre-long route.

What also has to be overcome – and this is the special moment – is the darkness barrier. It goes without saying that there is no daylight and only the most difficult sections will be illuminated! Add to this the fact that the tunnel effect sets in the mine shafts, even when the lighting is good. Proportions seem to shift and it is more difficult to estimate speeds. And all of this happens while moving at 80 kilometres per hour with a second mountain biker careering down the same track at the same time in a dual elimination contest! Because the mine shafts run almost at right angles, the bikers have to brake as hard as they can several times to reduce their speed to 30 to 40 kilometres per hour. No light from above, no space to the right or left and that’s not all.
The surface is very difficult too because the grip keeps changing: loose salt interspersed with some polished slabs of salt as smooth as ice. An additional factor that makes things more difficult is the climatic conditions underground. Very salty air and temperatures of around 25 degrees Celsius may sound like a day at the beach, but the air has been dried up by the salt dome. The air humidity is 0 percent.

Safety Measures
The Friday before the race will be used as a training and press day. The athletes have the chance to get accustomed to the special conditions. They will also go into the race with adequate protection similar to the gear worn by Moto Cross Challenge riders. Their years of experience, skill and state-of-the-art bicycle technology will reduce the risks to an absolute minimum. Not for nothing has the "Red Bull Race Down to the Middle of the Earth" become the "invitational race" of the world’s 24 best mountain bikers - the 16 top men and leading 8 women who have already won the most difficult Downhill and 4-Cross Challenges.


Glückauf in Sondershausen!
The "Glückauf" mine in Sondershausen has a long tradition. The prospecting rights were granted and the first deep shafts dug in 1891. Once potassium salt had been found at a depth of approx. 700 metres, exploitation of the “white gold” began in 1893.
While history took its course above ground, the mining industry also experienced various historical epochs: five mine shafts were dug and to begin with, steam engines were taken underground. These were subsequently replaced by diesel machines and ultimately, 110 million tonnes of raw salt were mined, during which the huge caves, which are now put to a very different use, were created.
Even in 1991, the last year of production, 2.3 million tonnes of raw salt were taken from the mine before potassium production stopped that same year. But the mine is still not idle to this day. Cutting and filling measures in the mining territory and activities to maintain the waste dump are the tasks of today at the mine.
The tunnel network in this salt mine is bigger than the road network in a small town on the surface, but it lies between 400 and 1000 metres underground. Tunnels with a gradient of over 25% in places link up the shafts with one another. It did not take long to come up with the idea of using this “infrastructure” for a downhill mountain bike race. It is one of the creative ideas that turn the mine into an experience and allow it to do justice to its name “Adventure Mine”.

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