After winning the Brazilian Grand Prix Mark Webber set off for Tasmania and the Swisse Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge. Before heading to the airport he explained what he’s doing here Down Under…
Next week Mark Webber will be driving the RB7 through the streets of Red Bull Racing’s home city of Milton Keynes but before then he has a pressing appointment on our side of the world. The Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge has become a fixture in recent years, as Mark and other similarly-minded athletes put themselves through a hardcore adventure sports programme across the Bass Strait.
Of course, a gruelling endurance marathon is the sort of thing Mark likes to do before watching the breakfast news, but the Challenge is a bit more than that, having raised well over a million dollars for good causes. Mark found a couple of seconds to draw breath and fill us in on the details for this year’s events…
Mark, this year there’s a Van Diemen Cup, an Ambassador’s Cup and a Challenge Cup up for grabs. What does each of those signify and what’s the mix of sports involved this year?
We have a five-day event, a three-day event and a single day event so there is a chance for teams of two to do different lengths of the challenge. As for the sports involved, there’s mountain biking, running, abseiling, kayaking… and a few mystery disciplines as well. So maybe a surprise swing here and there that they don’t know about.
Do you have to train specifically for this or can you come in straight from the F1 season?
My F1 fitness carries me reasonably well but there needs to be some specific stuff as well – at least there was in years gone by when I was doing the whole challenge. This year I’ve got to skip out early, but if you’re dong the five days you’ve got to make specific preparations. Feet are a big thing. You have to make sure that you don’t get blisters, which means ensuring you’ve got the right shoes and they’re ready for the job. Also, as we’re kayaking, it’s important to take care of your arse!
Tell us something about the charities you’re supporting this time out and what the Mark Webber Challenge Foundation does in general…
We’ve always tried to support kids, particularly with a leukemia foundation. Cancer has been quite tough on my family, so I wanted to go in this direction but with an emphasis on charities working with children – and of course their parents who are going through a tough time as well. We’ve done a lot with that in the last five or six years, raising well over a million dollars for those charities. We’ve also built some apartments in Melbourne so that people can get treatment and have the correct accommodation when they come away from home.
How can people donate?
They can do that on the Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge website. There is a section for donations.
You also support a charity to look after the Tasmanian Devil. Why does it need help – apart from the fact most people in the Northern Hemisphere think it's a cartoon character?
The Save the Tassie Devil Appeal is also something that’s important, particularly for Tasmanians but also for Australia in general. The devil has a very rare disease in the mouth and it starves itself to death basically. If we can get on top of the tumour we can help the devil population recover. That’s something we’ll be putting funding towards.
Aside from the knocks and bruises that you pick up, the last Tasmania Challenge saw you quite seriously injured. Given that and the terrible time Robert Kubica has had this year, is it difficult to stop teams wrapping their drivers in cotton wool during the off-season?
Not really. I think the Red Bull philosophy is that they trust you to look after yourself. I know that my main career is racing in Formula One, so I want to make sure I don’t do anything to jeopardise that and I haven’t missed a grand prix yet. Obviously Robert’s accident has been very nasty: it’s not only career-changing but life-changing. Obviously we try to avoid putting ourselves in positions like that, but as you say, we need to live a little bit too.
What's the Adventure Run? Why has that been added to the programme?
The Adventure Run is really for the local community. I’m not there for the last part of the Challenge because I’m coming back to do the showcar run. Instead I’m going there before the event starts and we’re going to do a small run for people to get an understanding of what the Challenge is about – a snapshot basically – and spend some time with me, and have some fun. We’ll have nice barbecues and everyone can join in.
Aside from the sports there’s a fair amount of camping involved in the Challenge. Are you good at that stuff? Were you a scout as a kid?
I wasn’t a scout, no. But we are in some very remote locations so it’s what you have to do. I’ve improved a lot actually. I’ve been lucky to be around good people to learn the fieldcraft from and make sure I can look after myself, though there’s room for improvement. It’s not easy to be perfect at getting all of that stuff right in terms of cooking and getting camp up and down in a good way – particularly if the weather isn’t good and you’re cold and everything’s wet. You need to be clever.
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