Team SoBe are 2002 BALANCE® BAR 24-Hour Adventure Champions

Lauren Pelletreau / 27.11.2002

Consistency and determination sum up a year’s worth of championship racing for Team SoBe. With first place finishes in two of five events, and second place showings in the remainder, Team SoBe was crowned Series champion of the BALANCE ® Bar 24-Hour Adventure.

In addition to individual event earnings, Team SoBe took home $15,000 for their overall efforts. Earning 560 points for SoBe throughout the Series, Danelle Ballengee, Mike Kloser and Michael Tobin (Dan Weiland competed in place of Tobin in the New York race) have become the premier team in Adventure Racing and the BALANCE ® Bar 24-Hour Champion. Team Epinephrine earned 2nd place honors with 440 points, while Team BALANCE Bar, with 418 points, rounded out the top three, with each team taking home their respective shares of the $35,000 championship prize purse.

“We started thinking about the Series championship before the Phoenix event. Throughout the Series we knew we had to keep it together and stay fit as a team for almost a year,” said Ballengee. “The BALANCE® Bar 24-Hour Adventure drew the best adventure racers in the country. We wanted to be consistent and race well, knowing it would be a challenge to race against such an elite group of athletes.”

The fifth and final tour stop featured a 79-mile course in the greater Los Angeles area. Competitors paddled along the shores of the Pacific Ocean and mountain biked atop the ridges of Southern California. Despite being assessed a 30-minute penalty early in the course, Team SoBe placed 2nd in this decisive race, with the third teammate crossing the finish just one-one hundreth of a second behind Team Earthlink. With times of 13:55:00 and 13:55:01, respectively, Earthlink and SoBe showed strength and perseverance through the final stride. Team Epinephrine finished third at 14:02:05.

The 2002 BALANCE® Bar 24-Hour Adventure, the ultimate test of physical endurance, made stops in Phoenix, Hood River, OR, Boston, New York and finished with the series championship in Los Angeles, CA. Teams of three vied for the National Championship title. The BALANCE® Bar 24-Hour Adventure Series offered $15,000 per event for elite coed division competitors and a total purse of $110,000.

The BALANCE® Bar 24-Hour Adventure is televised on the Outdoor Life Network in one-hour feature presentations. Upcoming broadcast airings include the Boston race on December 4th at 10:00 PM EST, New York event on December 11th at 10:00 PM EST and the Los Angeles race on December 18th at 10:00 PM EST.

Entry fee for each BALANCE® Bar 24-Hour adventure is $750 per team. For further information, please visit the BALANCE® Bar 24-Hour Adventure web site www.BalanceBar24hour.com or call (818) 707-8867.

RESULTS 2002 Final BALANCE Bar 24-Hour Adventure
Coed Elite Division Standings
1. Team SoBe – 560 pts … $15,000
2. Team Epinephrine – 440 pts … $9,000
3. Team Balance Bar – 418 pts … $6,000
4. Team Oxydol - 397 pts … $3,000
5. Team Earthlink – 363 pts … $2,000