Expedition Oregon - Americas Toughest Race
Expedition Oregon Day One Thoughts From RD Jason Magness
Press Release / 13.05.2021
Epic first day with a lot of what we expected, and a lot of surprises. The Prologue was a bigger test for some teams than they anticipated with a very steep 1000’ climb, some barb wire fencing to negotiate and several river crossings for some teams. 12 teams chose to inflate rafts and get right into the river in hopes of getting the 100km paddle leg done during light.
First off the Prologue was the pro running team Recharge Bend Racing who came in nearly 5 minutes ahead of the nearest team. But their inexperience transitioning led to them being 3rd of the elite teams into the water.
Most exciting for the logistics staff was when team 21 accidentally set off their emergency beacon, prompting a search and rescue response, but since they didn’t know about it, they continued on paddling sending us all on a bit of a wild goose chase.
Overall we were a bit surprised by several teams reporting multiple swims during the packraft section, and 10 teams were still on the river when darkness fell. Team Onyx struggled on the paddle, and was one of the last teams in, with captain Cliff Lyles falling out of the boat and swimming the final 100 meters to the TA. With water temps in the 40s and air temps in the 80s, it was a crazy dance of hot and cold for nearly all the racers.
Transition times as well varied wildly, and it was a complicated transition - deflating and storing paddle gear, building bikes, and preparing for an massively difficult leg that would last over a full day for many of the teams. Top teams were in and out in less than 30 minutes, while teams toward the back of the pack were over 3 hours. Again Recharge/BendRacing showed their rookieness and speed. Pulling into the Transition in 3rd place, and leaving in 6th. Ouch.
For many of the rookie teams it was a wake up call and they responded to it in one of two ways. Some looked pretty shattered and forlorn as they slowly transitioned, hollowed eyes staring into a bubble of light as they rode away into the night. But a few of the rookie team - BlueJay, Adidas Terrex, seemed to be thriving in this unknown element and were keeping pace (and looking healthier) than teams with strong rankings and decades more of experience.
Many of the top teams who rode away with an hour or two of daylight left were expecting to finish early morning, but as i write this at 10:30 AM they are still miles and miles away….
Final interesting navigation note is that teams had two route choices between CP3 and CP4. Both similar distance, but a close look at the topography would have clued navigators into on important difference - Northwestern route is basically a continuous dirt road climb and the southeast route was flatish for the first haf and then gained the same amount of elevation in half the distance. Leaders Vidaraid chose the SE route. Bend Racing and Ecuador chose the Northwest route and picked up over 45 minutes on the leaders…It likely will not be enough, and none of them know that the gap has been closed a bit...and in reality Vidariad still has a comfortable buffer, but with only 24 hour into the event, I am sure they’d love to have that extra 45 min back.
Finally, we're still waiting to hear what happened to Team MRC who were expected to be top contenders but are way back. We know they flipped early in the packraft (we have the pics!), but they were out of the water way way way behind the lead pack.
We also just heard a report from an imbedded media crew that someone on team Checkpoint Zero is looking pretty haggard and was falling over on the bike on flat areas. We hope everyone is ok.
We fully expect there will be a few teams that will not leave this TA under their own power (or even those that will not make it here under their own power). But for those of you following a team dear to your heart - send them love (and trail mail from the tracking page!) to keep them going when they do get here.
And congrats to every team for making it through the first day of America’s Toughest Race. We can’t wait for day two.
SleepMonsters
