Competitive autostop

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Hitchhiking is also seen by some as a (new) form of extreme sport.

Russian hitchhiking clubs (e.g. PASL) are the pioneers of this form of sport, where specific distances have to be traveled by hitchhiking as fast as possible in order to win a competition. This included excursions of a few days up to several weeks, covering thousands of kilometers of hitchhiking motorized vehicles, freight airplanes or boats. Next to that, elements of sport orienteering & navigation in (un)known territory off the road can be implemented in such competitions, asking the participant for more than just hitting the road.

In 2012, there will be a third attempt for the World Championships.

While competitive autostop is currently mostly based in the Baltics and Russia, there are attempts to establish competitive autostop/sport hitchhiking in Western Europe as well. If you are interested in building up such, be welcome to join the hitchsport mailing list.

Regulations

In the past PASL created a document of competitive autostop rules & regulations, wich have been adopted and revised by other hitchhiking clubs, e.g. Vilnius based VHHC. The international regulations by VHHC can be found here (English).

Links

• Alexey Vorov explains the idea of the TransGlobal Austostop Race (Russian)
• hitchsport mailing list for competitive autostop in Western Europe