Expedition Oregon - Americas Toughest Race
US and International Teams Prepare For America’s Toughest Race
Rob Howard / 11.05.2021
A who’s who of the most experienced and successful expedition adventure racers from around the USA are now gathered in Prineville, Oregon, ready for America’s Toughest Race (Expedition Oregon). They are joined by a scattering of international racers and two very strong international teams to complete a field of 36, for what it the first AR World Series race of this disrupted year.
The Bend Racing team has done a great job keeping the race on the calendar and getting everyone to the start line with all that is happening with Covid, and while the 19 international teams originally entered sadly can’t be there, they’ve had great support from US teams. (They’ve also lost half their volunteers who were coming from Canada.)
Among the US entry are some of the most of the experienced adventure racers in the country (and the world) and teams who have many USARA race wins to their name. On their return to racing Rootstock Racing won the recent Shenandoah Epic, where Strong Machine AR were second, and both are high in the USARA rankings. So too are Bluejay, who have lots of experience of racing in Oregon.
MRC/Bluelight are 12th in the ARWS rankings and were 6th at the last Expedition Oregon, and Tanz Navigation, GoalsARA, Castelli, Checkpoint Zero, Good ‘Nuff and Norcal are experienced teams you expect to see on the finishers list more often than not. (And in this race there may be relatively few finishers.)
The winners last time out were QuestAR, who are not racing, but two of the winning team are ... and guess where they’ve landed? It’s not a big surprise; they are on the two visiting international teams who will put the spice into the already competitive mix of U.S. teams.
Mari Chandler is with world #2 team Vidaraid, this time racing as La Jolla IVF/Vidaraid. Travel restrictions have forced a reshuffle and Mari joins the team, along with Helico Terres from Brazil. With their vast experience, and joining Urtzi Iglesias and Marco Amselem, the team will be as strong as ever and probably the race favourites.
The other international contenders are 4Regions Ecuador, led by Dani Costa Tobar. This team’s navigator could not travel from Europe so they now have Dusty Caseria ... who was on the winning team in 2019 and in third place in 2018.
For all the teams, there may be some extra trepidation in getting back to racing after a long lay-off and some disruption to training. Some names will be known to race followers from Eco-Challenge Fiji in 2019, and it may be their first big race since then. Those who watched the shows will pick out Team Onyx, who featured heavily, as did Chelsey Magness of Bend Racing, who organise this race.
Chelsey is racing this time, so has not been part of the event planning and organisation and as you might expect her team is one of the most experienced in the race. Team Journey/Bend Racing is comprised of 3 female racers as she is competing with Katie Ferrington and Rea Kolbl, who is another name familiar to Eco-Challenge fans as she was on second placed Team Canada. The ‘Mandatory Male’ is French racer Joseph Bellier. (The team will be filmed for a documentary to be called ‘Mandatory Gear’.)
We can’t end without a mention of Team Psyched, who are another team with 3 female racers, and they are all from the Sykes family!
The team is made up of Mom and Dad (Colleen and Shane), who fell in love while training for an adventure race in 1999, and Sara (17) and Patrea (15), two of their 6 children. Sara and Patrea summited Kilimanjaro aged 10 and 12 and did their first adventure race the following year. The family motto is ‘Go and Do’! They are sure to be a hugely popular team and have a great following.
You can see the full team list at; https://www.americastoughestrace.com/teams
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