---

Primal Quest 2009: Into the Badlands

Rob Howard / 13.08.2009

This year's Primal Quest is about to start, and with 32 teams it's a slimed-down race compared to previous events, but one that carries with a it a history of arduous courses which looks set to be continued in the Badlands of South Dakota.

This year's course promises a 600km route across the Badlands and Black Hills and is expected to take up to 10 days for those teams who stick it out to the bitter end. The full course is due to be revealed to teams any time now at the race venue in Rapid City, but the start location has already been announced and it will be at Ricard Road in Meade County. It will be an early start with the racers catching buses at 3 am and the gun going off at 5 am. SPOT are once again the headline sponsors and are running the race tracking which can be viewed on the Primal Quest website.

The most significant difference to the start line up this year is that defending champions Team Nike, who have won the past 5 races, will not be taking part. They were expected and given team number one, but in a bad mountain biking accident team captain Mike Kloser sustained a broken collarbone, a collapsed lung and 5 broken ribs. This was last month but the team elected not to seek a last minute replacement and while Mike is on the mend he could not be fit for Primal Quest.

Another big name missing is Robyn Benincasa, who was to captain Team Merrell Zanfel Adventure but has undergone surgery to her hip and cannot take part. She has a very able replacement however in Denise McHale of Canada, who will now race with her husband Greg, veteran Kiwi racer Neil Jones and Rob Preston of Australia. They are expected to be one of the strongest teams in the race.

Current World Champions Orion Health from New Zealand are also among the favourites with their regular and reliably successful line-up of Wayne Oxenham, Stu Lynch, Brent Edwards and Anna Berthelson, but there are few other top international teams on the start line. The most experienced US contenders are Nuun - Feed the Machine led by Cyril Jay Rayon and Salomon Crested Butte led by Jon Brown.

We'll bring you news as the race progresses over the coming 10 days and you can see more at www.ecoprimalquest.com

See All Stories On This Race