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

Sadly, Yak is staying home...because of the life choices I've made...I love you honey.

We're sending PER veteran, Jose Manuel Jimenez, from Chile to Brazil to cover this popular expedition race from November 9th - 19th.

Just 4 US teams will be competing and we're gonna be on them like white on rice. Tune in to follow Dart-nuun, Merrell/Wigwam, GoLite/Timberland and SOLE as they race through Rio de Janeiro.

In the 3 weeks since registration opened for the Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race, 21 teams have signed up to bike, trek and paddle 85+ miles in 30 hours next March in Helen, GA.

With a cap of 60 teams there are 39 left. Registration is open through January 31st.

Race at a glance:

March 23-25, 2007 in Helen, GA
60 supported teams of 3
85+ miles of biking, trekking, paddling and orienteering
30 hours (top finishers expected in 20 or so)
$3k prize purse for top 3 finishers in Co-Ed Elite division
Gear prizes for 4th-25th place in Co-Ed Elite and
Gear prizes for top 3 finishers in Masters and Open divisions
Friday night lodging and catered pre-race briefing included
$500 per team

The race is now just 16 days away. So far the site is showing 50 teams registered. Checkpoint Zero will be represented by two teams and Army of Zero reporter Mike Bitton will also be attending. He'll be submitting a report and photo gallery after the race.

Visit USARANationals.com for updates during the race.

Jenny couldn't hold back. From the home office of Gravity Play Sports in Durango, CO...we've got 11 memorable moments on the Primal Quest Top 5 List today:

1) The amazing ropes section on Castleton Tower....WOW!

2) Ian Adamson referring to his blister as "a squirter"!

3) The ONE Dorito. How many chips would it take to get you out of bed after 6 days of racing?

4) The yoga guru's "mind-compass connection" not happening :-)

5) Where's Waldo? Where is Team Crested Butte/Salomon and their amazing comeback???

6) "Hair is standing on end, but the ears ain't buzzing yet..."

7) "We're going down to go back up again?"

8) Unidentified wipeouts - we want more bloopers!

9) Nike's teamwork

10) Last but not least, TOUGH girls!

And sent in this morning at 8:50 am by Jenny, who clearly hopped online as soon as she woke up...

11) The magic tire that repaired itself in the middle of nowhere. Props to Travis Macy for coming to the rescue for Team GoLite/Timberland at Gemini Bridges by donating a his tire and to race management for making the right call and allowing it.

Here they are folks, from the home office in Durango, CO...Gravity Play's Primal Quest Top 5 List for Day 3:

1) Nike forgetting their Nikes
2) There's no crying in adventure racing (ya, right)
3) Mike Kloser is the Terminator
4) Deja Vu in the desert (Gravity Play produces several races in the Moab area)
5) That rattlesnake had to be a paid actor

I've got one too:

6) Yak almost walking in front of the camera at TA8 and Gemini Bridges

Primal Quest was epic and I had a great time covering it this past summer in Moab. It's an entirely different kind of thrill watching it on TV...I'm having a great time all over again.

Here's the Top 5 List from Day two, a collaboration with our friends at Gravity Play:

1) "exploring the linear consciousness of the mind body connection through adventure racing"...WTF?
2) walking through the desert on a horse with no name
3) do you have any idea how many calories are in a fruit pie? Ian does.
4) ok a day late, but...school buses?!??!
5) where is team Gnome Hunters? are they part of the Gnome Liberation Front?

My good friends at Gravity Play couldn't resist. Letterman already coined the Top 10 List so they're going with their Top 5 highlights (and lowlights) from each day of PQ on TV:

1) Robin saying she could kick Kloser's ass (that's rich)
2) Issac Wilson's pop-up cameos
3) Referring to Robin's cleavage as "food storage"
4) Marcel in the river soaking his burnt inner thighs
5) Blurred butt shots of naked racers (Marcel again)

So I'm sittin' around on Friday...ya know, just minding my own business...when I get this email from Rich Brazeau. He's the CEO of Primal Quest, LLC. We're buds. His missive is short and to the point. All it says is 'call me' with a number. I called him.

Rich was in Montana at the offices of Barrett Productions, the company tasked with filming Primal Quest and turning the raw footage into the epic we're all waiting to see.

He was hard at work with the staff of Barrett and his partners at ESPN, putting the final touches on the 6 hour Primal Quest broadcast that airs this week. Episodes 1-4 will be shown on ESPN2 Monday (YES, tonight) through Thursday. The finale will be shown on ABC this coming Saturday.

Rich wanted to give me his thoughts on how the final cut had turned out so that I could share it will all of you.

You'd expect the CEO to have good things to say. He did. You'd expect him to say that he was excited and confident. He is. What you might not expect is for him to go on record saying, "I loved watching Eco Challenge on TV. They did an amazing job. What we've done raises the bar." He said that too.

I asked Rich how this production differed from what we've seen of PQ in the past, and more importantly, why he felt it was better than what Mark Burnett did with Eco Challenge.

"ESPN is the difference. With their involvement, Primal Quest comes off more like a sport than a drama set against the backdrop of a sport. Don't get me wrong, it's dramatic, but I think it does adventure racing justice in a way the racers are going to appreciate. I think this broadcast has the potential to inform and excite the public about adventure racing to an even greater extent than Eco Challenge did."

I asked Rich if there was any particluar high point in the broadcast we should be looking out for. "All of Episode 4," he said. "Episode 4 is...well you're just going to have to watch it...don't miss Episode 4."

In order to tell the story of Primal Quest from the Start to the Finish with a degree of continuity, a number of teams were selected in advance to be filmed in detail. These teams had camera crews with them around the clock. As Rich puts it, fate smiled on this arrangement. "We got really lucky. Three of the teams we were following ended up at the front of the pack. That gave us a front row seat to the very dramatic and closely fought finish and a sweatheart story we wouldn't have captured otherwise."

I asked Rich if he had any regrets. "I wish we could have covered more teams. I wish we could have shined the spotlight on all the teams. There is simply no way to do it."

I chatted with Rich for maybe 40 minutes about the race, the sport and the upcoming broadcast. I can tell you that he is already thinking of next year in part because he is so sure of the reaction this broadcast is going to get. If it's received even half as well as he expects, I get the feeling it's going to breath new life into adventure racing at a time when it's future seems uncertain.

Tel l your friends to watch Primal Quest. Tell your enemies. Tell everyone you know. We live in a world where money talks and bull$hit walks. You don't need to be a TV executive to know that the future of Primal Quest is tied to the success or failure of it's presentation to the public at large. If it's a hit we'll see bigger and better things next year and and the sport will benefit.

GoLite is giving away the gear used by team GoLite/Timberland and Merrell is giving away 50 pairs of Overdrives. All you've got to do is watch Primal Quest on ESPN2 and ABC and then answer questions about what you've seen.

You might remember that earlier this year I had to pull our events calendar offline. It was in pretty rough shape and I just didn't have the time to work on it.

Now that Primal Quest, the Raid, the opening of registration for the CP Zero Adventure Race and the Moab Extreme Expedition are behind me, I managed to find a couple hours to get it dialed in.

If you're an RD and your 2007 schedule is set, by all means please enter your events right now. If you're not an RD, but you know of an event I'm missing, please do me a solid and throw that one in there too.

Events won't show immediately. Once submitted, they're queued for approval by me. Gotta keep the script kiddies from selling Viagra on my calendar :-)

You'll notice there are two ad slots to the left side of the Calendar. These slots are being held open (the ads in there now are temporary) to provide RDs a cost effective way to stand out in the one place I hope most adventure racers in the US will soon be spending hours planning their 2007 season. Details will be posted soon.

SOAR Adventures is giving away some CP Zero schwag to whoever sends in the most inspiring story about AR teamwork. Check it out, and while you're there, take a look around...they've got a gorgeous site.

So when the accomplished racers of Atlanta based Enduraventure won the North Georgia Adventure Race this past March, they won a free entry into the NOC 30 Hour Adventure Race scheduled for September in Nantahala, NC. That race got cancelled. That's a raw deal.

Checkpoint Zero was a sponsor of the NOC race and now we're promoting our own race next March in Helen, GA. Not only that, but Tony Berwald, the man responsible for the overwhelming succes of the NGAR, is designing our course.

With this in mind Enduraventure has been invited to compete in the Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race at to defend their title on Tony's latest course.

Granting them a comped entry isn't just marketing spin...well ok it kinda is, but it's also the start of a tradition I look forward to carrying on so long as there is a Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race. Win in the Coed Elite division and your team races free the next year to see if you can 2-peat.

I'm betting Enduraventure can do it. These guys (sorry Lisa, but you're tougher and faster than most of the men I know so I'm sticking with 'guys') aren't just fast...they're stupid fast...like Jay Curwen and his crew, but they read the rule book :-)

Veteran photographer Mike Bitton has done it again. Check out his pics of the recent Sunsweet 24 Hour Adventure Race.