RAAM: Strategic Lions closing gap on second placed team

British team Strategic Lions are now nearly 2,500 miles into the 2012 Race Across America and are targeting second place in the eight-man category, making up a quarter of an hour yesterday on the team ahead of them, Team 4Mil. That included a big effort from the Yorkshire outfit's A team, which covered 311 miles at a speed of 25 miles an hour.

The performance of Strategic Lions is all the more impressive once the heat and headwinds that they have been faced with as they make their way across the continent are taken into account.

Going into the race, the team said they wanted to beat the record they narrowly missed out on last year, when they won the category, and although victory this year may be beyond them - the USA Team ViaSat appear to have that sewn up - an average speed to date of 23 miles an hour suggests they are on target to at least improve on that time.

Based on their current speed, by this time tomorrow we should know whether they managed that.

As of 9am this morning (UK time), according to the RAAM website, Team ViaSat had covered 2,612.28 miles, Team 4Mil 2,545.57 miles, and Strategic Lions 2,428.25 miles.

Those distances are based on the location of the last checkpoint passed and are unlikely to reflect the actual distance covered or the real-time gaps between teams in the 3,000 mile race.