After having one of their teammates withdraw due to a minor, non-life threatening injury, Team Radioactive Beagles continues the race as an unranked team. The other members are in good spirits and racing well. 

Your daily dose of news from the PQ field…

- Teams are hoping to hear from friends and family from home, and comments are welcome. Go to your favorite team’s page on the PQ website and leave comments and words of encouragement. Simply click on a blog post on the teams page, scroll to the bottom and enter your note. When you’re all done, hit the “Submit Comment” button and your message will be off to the team. 

- The top three teams continue their assault on one another and the course today, not missing a beat with the removal of today’s whitewater course. Team Nike was the first team out of CP15 and are now heading into the Crazy Mountains, with Merrell in pursuit, and TeamPeakAdventure.com not far off the pace. Rumor has it that Nike left their snowshoes back at the TA however, and when last scouted, the Crazies were still covered by a deep layer of snow. 

- Teams were happy to see their bikes for the first time today after a number of long trekking sections, but arriving at CP13, where they were expecting to hit the Yellowstone River, they were told that their first bike ride would last longer than they had first expected. 

- Not everyone was happy to stay off the water today. Word from the course is that Team BaseCamp was hoping to test their skills on the Yellowstone, and even Dart-Nuun and Team Bones were a bit disappointed that the river was closed as well.

- Finally, the course change today was clearly a good idea, as it took PQ teams straight down Adventure Lane. 

Following the wild day yesterday on the Gallatin River that saw the closure of that portion of the course, the decision was made to keep teams off the Yellowstone River today as it nears it’s crest as well. Many teams are currently approaching CP12 where they will transition to the first mountain biking leg of this year’s course, but they’re about to learn that they’re in for more time on the bike than they expected.

The original course design had teams riding their bikes along the 17 mile Sportraxx by Simpson mountain bike segment to TA6 in Emigrant where they were originally going to transition to river kayaks. Now, however, they’ll continue along to TA7 on their bikes thanks to conditions on the river.

After carefully studying the Yellowstone, and speaking to local authorities, the choice seemed clear. The area rescue teams have their hands full insuring the safety of the local paddlers, and wouldn’t be available to assist in any potential issues involving racers. Safety remains paramount in all aspects of the event, and after all the trekking and whitewater the racers have seen so far, I’m sure they’re happy to see their bikes. 

Photo by Jason Perreira

More media coverage on Primal Quest 2008:

White-knuckle ride (Bozeman Daily Chronicle)

Primal Quest teams off to faster-than-expected start (The Missoulian)

Local Primal Quest team off and trekking (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) 

Former Billings resident ‘hooked’ on eco racing (Billings Gazette) 

Big Sky endurance race kicks-off (KBZK Bozeman)

Westport native prepares for primal journey (The Herald News)

Not only is Primal Quest the “World’s most challenging human endurance competition”, it may just be the most compelling as well. Yesterday, as the race got underway, the website was hit with more than 2.2 million page views, as eager adventure racing fans clamored for news on the event. 

We would like to thank everyone who is following the event online and have made Primal Quest 2008 a big success. Stay tuned, we have a lot more racing to come. 

Photo by Wouter Kingma

Team CWC Stadium Dogs continues PQ 08 as an unranked team after one of the team members was forced to withdraw following a minor, non-life threatening injury. The team has elected to skip both the Travel Montana Inflatable Kayak section as well as the TATE Riverboarding section, and are en route to TA4 to continue the race.