Subaru Primal Quest Adventure Race Update

July 9, 2002 (6:00 pm; Mountain Standard Time)

Greetings:

The racers have now been out for 51 hours. Team Santa Fe finished the tough 106 mile mtn bike segment at 3:05 pm (Tuesday) after spending 34 hours on the mtn bikes (maybe with a few breaks). They currently stand in 32^nd place, so they are actually moving up a bit in their placement. At 4:05 pm, they left CP13 which is the second transition area into a mountaineering section. They are good mountaineers, so they may pick up a little more ground. The next leg is only 4 miles (as the crow flies), but it goes up some very technical sections. It has been taking earlier teams 4-5 hours to travel from CP13 to CP14.

With a second ascent to high elevation in the mountaineering section, the medical team is concerned about the possibility of pulmonary edema. They will be on the look out for that. CP14 is also a very exposed area in the course, and a place that is susceptible to lightning strikes. Based on the most recent weather radar, it looks like there was a very strong line of thunderstorms that has hit the area. However, they appear to be dissipating at this point. Hopefully, Team Santa Fe will time the ascent so that they will miss the worse of the storm.

The course is definitely taking its toll on the teams. 3 teams have withdrawn and 6 teams have lost team members so they are attempting the course unranked. As expected, altitude sickness and dehydration has affected the racers. One racer is thought to have developed a stress fracture of the ankle. Two different racers needed helicopter evacuation when they suffered severe electrolyte imbalance. Two of the teams that had to proceed unranked were pre-race favorites: teams Earthlink and EcoInternet-GoLite.

Just to give you a review of their progress in the mtn bike section, let’s go back to CP8. They arrived at CP8 (8,900’ and 65.5 miles into the race) at 6:54 pm (Monday) after spending 6 hours and 15 minutes on the bikes. They were in 33^rd place at that point. They arrived at Lizard Head Pass (10,200’ and 82 miles into the race) at 2:31 am (Tuesday). They spent an hour there and left in 38^th place. They hit CP 10 (8,200’ and a race distance of 91 miles) at 4:25 am in 35^th place. By the time they reached CP11 (7,700’ and 120 miles into the race) it was 10:37 am and they were in 36^th place. The next leg to CP12 (9,300’ and 126 miles) had to be very tough taking the team 1.5 hours to cover the 6 miles – they left in 37^th place. They finally completed the mtn bike section at CP13 (9,300’ and 130 miles into the race) at 3:05 pm in 37^th place. (Note: their placement is actually better than listed by 2-3 places because some of the teams that are ahead of them are racing unranked).

I had been expecting to hear from the support crew after the team finished the transition at CP13. However, I have not yet heard from them, probably because of bad cell phone coverage. As soon as I get a first hand account from the support crew, I will pass the information along. The next transition area is at CP17.

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 .