Musing and Errata on the world of Adventure Racing from the Yak
presented by MPGear.com

Got an interesting email from Luke at Infiterra Sports the other day:

Michael Boks of Grand Rapids Area Adventure Racing recently compiled some stats for 2007. He collected race data from the four main AR promoters in the state: Infiterra Sports, River Rats AR, GRAAR, and Endurance Sports. So far in 2007, these four promoters have combined to host nine adventure races ranging from four hour sprints to four day expeditions.

For those nine adventure races this year they have had 820 unique racers. Of those, nearly 200 have raced at least twice and over 50 have raced at least three times. There are a handful of racers that have raced in more then three Michigan races so far in 2007 and one racer, actually from Ohio, that has made it out to six different races.

This shows a great racer base in Michigan and the Midwest, but further looking at the data it shows that nearly 3/4 of the racers have only participated in one event so far in 2007. Combine that number with general input from the RD's and it was determined that the main reason this number is so high is because they have a large number of first time racers. Racers that will get hooked on the AR experience and will be
searching for events in 2008 and beyond.

The Michigan adventure racing scene continues on strong with three more races to close out the 2007 season. The Adventure Rage, GRAAR Fall Challenge, and the December Chill will wrap up the 12 event season and most likely push the total number of unique racers in Michigan over the 1000 mark.

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Luke

Nice work Michael. Looks like the doom and gloom crowd have their work cut out for them convincing the rest of us that "AR is dying" :-)