Subaru Primal Quest Adventure Race Update

July 8, 2002 (8:00 pm; Mountain Standard Time)

Greetings:

The racers have now been out for 28 hours. As far as I knew, Team Santa Fe has had very little, if any sleep yet. They are in the middle of the first 104 mile bike leg, and I am guessing that they are getting close to CP8 by now.

They have now been on their bikes for 16 hours – ouch. They are holding their own in this discipline, even though this is not their strong suit. They were listed to have left CP4 at 5 am, but they arrived at CP5 at 5:28 am, so I would guess the departure time was incorrect and they really did not rest at CP4. CP5 (9,300’) is apparently 0.5 miles from CP4, and they covered this in 2 hours and 45 min (in 34^th place) so this must have been quite a climb or the information is not correct. The team arrived at CP6 (8,400’) at 6:19 am in 35^th place – this is listed as 29.5 miles into the race. The next segment was very long taking the team 6 hours and 20 min to arrive at CP7 (9,350’) in 34^th place at 44 miles into the race. I might add that they were within about a half hour of the 10 teams ahead of them at CP7.

The overall race is shaping up to be a relatively tight one for the top 10 teams. The previous leader, Montrail received a 10 hour penalty when they went a restricted direction (and were caught red-handed by the GPS trace). They will have to serve their penalty at CP13. Right now a New Zealand team (Sobe/SmartWool) is in the lead. Another team has dropped out at CP7 – Team SierraCreek.com. The trailing teams are falling far behind, and at this point there are still 7 teams that have not reached CP4.

The weather is currently quite good – in the 70s. However, mountain thunderstorms are expected tomorrow. This will be a factor when the teams get to the area near CP14 where the race organizers are worried about lightning strike danger.

If you would like to view any earlier e-mails (with a few pictures), they have been posted on the following website: http://www.lawired.com/csr/home.htm .