The lead teams will finish the 417-mile Primal Quest adventure race today. Team Nike PowerBlast had been neck and neck with Merrell/Wigwam for hundreds of miles, sometimes trailing them by a couple hours, but at about 10 last night, high in the La Sal Mountains, according to GPS data, Merrell got off course, made several wandering backtracks, and lost THREE HOURS looking for the route.
Nike wasted no time, blasting past them. Now they lead Merrell by about five hours.
GoLite is on Nike's trail, making a huge comeback after several strokes of bad luck. (see previous posts about their curse).
Two other Colorado teams, Nike/Beaver Creek and Salomon/Crested Butte are flying through the La Sals in the top 10, but don't expect any upsets, they are over nine hours behind the front.
The last challenge in this race is a wild technical rope section where teams must ascend a sheer face on a butte called Priest and Nuns, then rappel down the far side. The winning team collects $100,000.
That will buy a lot of ibuprofen, which they'll probably need.
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Thanks for the update. I wondered what happened to Nike-PowerBlast. That's gotta hurt.
Is the heat taking its toll on the racers who are back in the pack?
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