While the top teams have either reached the finish line or are still straggling in, Team South Dakota is still working hard towards reaching their goal of completing Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT. As of this writing, the team is in 16th place and working its way through the river trek from Redshirt to Cheyenne, but we caught up with them awhile back to see how they were faring so far in the toughest adventure race on the planet. See what they had to say below.

The sixth team to complete the 2009 Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT is Team iMoat, who arrived as the finish line a short time ago. Amongst their requests, other than the pizza, ice cream, and champagne that was awaiting them, was for a bottle of shampoo. I think the team is ready to hit the showers.

Team WEDALI, which stands for “We Eat Dust And Like It”, made a few other teams eat their dirt enroute to the finish line. The racers finished strong, moving up several places this morning to become the fifth team to reach the end of the race. The tired, but happy, athletes enjoyed ice cream, pizza, and champagne in celebration of the conclusion of their 600 mile journey.

Without our valued partners, Primal Quest wouldn’t be the event that it is. Each day, over the course of the race, we would like to take the opportunity to thank those partners that have contributed to the success of PQ and have helped us to put on the best adventure race in the world.

Last year in Montana, Primal Quest joined forces with SPOT, who had recently introduced a revolutionary new device that was all the rage in the outdoor community. The little orange gadget, known as the SPOT Satellite Messenger, was getting rave reviews for its ability to track people in the wild, and be used as an emergency rescue beacon should the need arise. But both SPOT and the Primal Quest staff has another use in mind for the Satellite Messenger; namely tracking the teams while out on the course.

At the time, none of us had any idea how the units would perform in an adventure race, but when the race was over, we all knew that the sport had been changed forever. The SPOT allowed for more accurate tracking of the teams, and gave fans at home the chance to follow along like never before. Adventure racing was turning into a spectator sport, and the feedback was tremendously positive.

Now, in 2009, we can’t think of any other company that we would want to partner with to provide our tracking and online leaderboard needs. The SPOT not only changes the way we follow the sport, it makes the athletes safer on the course as well, and the PQ medical team is grateful to have the technology on our side as well. It was a no brainer that SPOT would once again be our presenting partner in the Badlands.

We would like to thank everyone at SPOT for supporting not only Primal Quest, but adventure racing as a whole. We are proud to have you on board once again this year, providing tracking for fans following the teams on the Internet and keeping our teams safe in the field. Without you, there would be no Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT.

In this latest video, which comes are way courtesy of Bryan Thompson, the first three teams to cross the finish line reflect on their Primal Quest experience. You have to love the expression on the local weatherman’s face when the team tells him they’ve gone 600 miles on nine hours of sleep, and none in the previous 36 hours.