Subaru Primal Quest
Podium Places Decided
Gordon Wright (SPQ)/Rob / 11.09.2003
“This race I would class as one of the most competitive races ever in the history of the sport,� captain Ian Adamson said. “I think we felt we won it once we stopped ashore. No matter how far ahead we think we are, we’re always looking over our shoulder.�
Together the team travelled 457 miles and gained almost 55,000 feet of elevation – successfully navigating sections of mountain biking, trekking, caving, orienteering, flat and white-water paddling, and a ropes course that included an ascent of over 900 feet.
“The course was well balanced,� Adamson said. “I think (race director) Dan (Barger) did a superb job in patching it together. We got to see some stuff that I didn’t even know was in California.�
Team members Mike Kloser, Danelle Ballangee and Michael Tobin took their second-straight SPQ title. Adamson finished third with Team GoLite last year.
“Now that I’m a wealthy man I can pay my taxes,� Adamson said. Ballangee, sporting a shower cap as she came ashore steaming, was possibly hypothermic and rushed out of the medical tent. “I started getting pretty damn cold out there,� Adamson said to Kloser. “That was one of the tougher finishes.�
When told by the CBS crew to keep in mind that viewers know nothing about adventure racing, Kloser replied, “Neither do we. I don’t know why we keep doing it.�
Teams AROC and Seagate.com captured the final two podium spots later Wednesday morning. The two teams had been running virtually neck and neck since Monday, as AROC departed Chili Bar for the white water kayak section immediately after the dark zone lifted at 6:30 a.m. Seagate, operating on no sleep, followed an hour and a half behind.
Over the next 48 hours of racing, the teams battled for the second place prize of $50,000. It was only the momentum-slaying effect of a six-hour penalty, handed to Seagate for illegal travel on the trekking section, that insured AROC 2nd place.
The penalty – and Seagate’s six-hour lounge act at Homewood Ski Resort – does nothing to detract from the superb effort put forth by AROC. This all-Australian team was a marked darkhorse in the SPQ, so much so that they were not among the featured teams in pre-race press conferences. AROC made note of the exclusion, and in their friendly and understated – yet fiercely competitive – manner, set out to make amends.
The team was fast and solid in every portion of the competition, running as clean a race as anyone can hope in an expedition-length event. Perhaps more importantly, they made a ringing affirmation that big sponsorships and pre-race hype matter little in the face of experience and deft race tactics.
SleepMonsters
