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

See the OAR Events leaderboard for details. 14 teams and 2 solo racers started the race 5 days ago. Of those it appears that 1 of the solo racers and 6 of the teams dropped out...thus far. It looks like 4 teams have finished unranked and 3 are still racing.

This was not a great year for the Beast in terms of attendance. My guess is that with the USARA Nationals taking place in Tampa next week, many teams decided to give it a pass to avoid the risk of injury and to make sure they are in prime shape when racing for the title of US Champions.

All you have to do is win the Mighty Mo Expedition Race, a new offering from Bonk Hard Racing, LLC.

From the website:

They had the 'Oil for Food' program...we all know how that turned out. Now ARFE brings you...'Socks for Trash' :-)

SmartWool has teamed up with Adventure Racers for the Environment to encourage competitors at next month's USARA Adventure Race National Championship to pick up trash along the course. For each piece turned in that racer's name gets entered into a raffle for a chance to win one of 100 pairs of Adrenaline socks.

The racer/team that collects the most garbage will win a set of custom ARFE racing jerseys.

The rumor mill is buzzing. I've gotten several emails in the last few days asking if I have any information about this. I've more or less ignored them until now, figuring somebody out there was just talking out their ass and that the gossip was spreading like bird flu on a chicken farm...as gossip is prone to do.

Not 5 minutes ago I stumbled across a message on a website dedicated to sports photography. It was posted by a freelance shooter saying he had information from an inside source confirming the demise of the magazine.

I've given it some thought and decided that it's not my place to shine a light on the poster or his comments regarding his relationship with ASM (it was those comments that convinced me that his information is good).

Lets just call him an anonymous source for now, shall we :-)

In the meantime I've sent an email to the publisher and editor asking them to confirm or deny the rumor.

Maybe that's all this is...a rumor. Maybe not. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: So no reply from ASM as of 5:00 pm. However, I've now heard from several people who are all saying the same thing. The fat lady has sung.

Just got back from a 10 day trip to Maine and Canada. Took the wife and the little man to Bar Harbor for a bit of R and R and then we drove up to St. Andrews in Canada for a friend's wedding.

I took a few pics and thought some of you might be bored enough at work this afternoon to take a look :-)

Building on the success of last year's inaugural race, the 2006 edition of the Michigan Coast to Coast will be longer and tougher. Another sign these guys are heading in the right direction...a growing prize purse...$20,000 this time around.

There are only a handful of races that fall in between the standard short format we've all become accustomed to and the full blown international expedition races. Along with next week's Xstream Expedition from Gravity Play...this is one of them. I for one am stoked to see them doing so well. In fact we're making plans now to cover the race live from the course next summer.