Primal Quest is happy to announce that photojournalist and race director Tim Holmstrom, a member of the PQ family from the beginning, has returned for another round of adventure.

Having served as Photo Director for the previous four races Tim is currently designated as “Race Management,” a catch-all title that allows us to take advantage of his many and varied talents.

Said Primal Quest Director Don Mann, “We are all very excited and fortunate that Tim has joined the PQ Management team. Tim brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience in the sport of adventure racing. I have known Tim for many years. He worked with us at an early BEAST, and was one of the main photographers for The Complete Guide to Adventure Racing. As part of the management team, Tim will be contributing in the areas of photography, graphics, course design and race management.”

Since 2005 Tim has also been producing, promoting and staging his own events in Costa Rica and is the Race Director/Event Founder for The Coastal Challenge, Expedition Run, a race going into it’s fourth year in 2008.

Tim will return to Costa Rica in October for The Coastal Experiences, a much kinder and gentler version of The Coastal Challenge and a great way to be introduced to a staged running event.

Tim is also busy working on a couple long-term book projects including one documenting disappearing or endangered indigenous cultures such as the Ainu in Japan or the Inuit in Canada, as well as endangered cultures in Southeast and Central Asia, and Latin America. He also is working on a series of interviews with lighthouse keepers in the United States for a book titled “Light over the Water, a Quiet Way of Living.”

Photo Credit: Dan Campbell

Registration for the 75 announced team slots for Primal Quest 2008 opened thirty days ago on July 1st. Twelve hours later the 75 slots were filled and a waiting list began. Over the past thirty days that list has nearly doubled in size. With the tremendous interest in next year’s race we decided to open registration to an additional 15 teams.

Today we announce the first 79 teams confirmed for the 2008 race. Racers next year will represent at least eight countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, US. Five of the top ten teams from Primal Quest Utah will once again pick up the gauntlet of “The World’s Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition.”

See below for a list of confirmed teams. Check back often for the posting of additional teams… is one of them yours?

Team list updated 8/15/07

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Do you often find yourself trying to explain this thing we call expedition adventure racing? Show your family and friends (and potential sponsors) what Primal Quest is all about with a DVD from a past race. The just opened PQ online store has DVDs available from the 2002 Telluride race, the 2003 Lake Tahoe edition, and last year’s Primal Quest Utah. Keep checking our site as more Primal Quest products will be available soon! Visit the store today!

With volunteers from five continents and nineteen countries, Primal Quest 2008 will truly have an international flavour. In less than one month’s time more than 200 people have applied to help support the World’s Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition. Meanwhile, applications continue to pour into race headquarters.

The nineteen countries represented so far include Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Israel, Lithuania, Mexico, The Netherlands, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden as well as from all across the United States.

What are you doing next June? Volunteering is a great way to get a first hand, up close look at real expedition racing. Sign up today!

Photo: Volunteer Coordinator Christina Moon shows off her swag at PQ Utah.

Want to see AR box scores in your local paper? Then move to Colorado where papers such as the Summit Daily News have some of the broadest coverage of adventure racing in print. Or, skip the hassles of moving and enjoy writing from the likes of Devon O’Neil online.

Saturday’s edition of the Summit Daily has two articles about Primal Quest 2008. The first story recaps our exciting opening week of registration where, in case you haven’t heard, we sold out in twelve hours. In the second article the reader gets a few more details about Danelle Ballengee’s role in the 2008 edition of PQ.

Does your local paper have good AR coverage too? Let us know in the comments!

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For the second year in a row, registration for Primal Quest came and went in the blink of an eye. One of the big stories to emerge is the number of people from around the world who are excited to race or volunteer in Primal Quest 2008.

Primal Quest Director Don Mann noted, “The enthusiasm for PQ from around the world is overwhelming. As of this morning over 130 teams from eleven different countries have sent in applications. I believe this is unprecedented in the history of expedition level adventure racing.”

In addition to the slew of teams from all across the United States, applications were also received from Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela .

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Primal Quest Utah ended one year ago today with a giant party at the finish line for all of the racers, volunteers, and staff. It was a great end to an amazing couple of weeks. We can’t wait until next year to do it all over again.

We would like to wish all of our friends and family a very happy Independence Day. We would also like to congratulate our NEWLY MARRIED Directors of Competitor Relations, Chris Rumohr and Jamie Webster. Their wedding announcement was made in typical fashion via The A List:

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Primal Quest is excited to announce that the 2008 race sold out in less than 12 hours! Registration opened at midnight and within 30 minutes more than half the applications were filled by teams from 5 different countries.

Think you missed your chance to participate in this epic race? For a limited time you may sign up for the reserve list! We anticipate accepting teams from this list and highly encourage you to submit your application soon.

We are also happy to announce that since volunteer registration opened on Monday over 100 people from around the planet have signed on to help support the race. Join our team and add your name to the list!

The PQ team is very pleased to be an integral part of the adventure racing community and a leader in the continuation of expedition-level racing!