3:00am - Costly error results in retirement for Team Bones
Several teams were penalized by 4 hours for using a section of an off-limits road, including Team Bones. For Bones, this will sadly be the end of their race as they have decided to retire. The team’s tracker will now be held with volunteers while Team Bones rests and recuperates.
What does a 4 hour penalty look like in adventure race, and why would it cause a team to drop out? In a 30 hour race, a 4 hour penalty means that your team all of a sudden has only 26 hours to complete the course. Teams with no time penalties must arrive by 2:30pm in order for their points to count, but Team Bones and others knew that they would need to adjust their entire race strategy to attempt to arrive at the finish by 10:30am instead. This is a devastating blow to many teams, especially those who have carefully tuned their race strategies and given their all to a race. Team Bones was the first to summit Mammoth Mountain yesterday and they were moving extremely fast. Adventure racing is full of pitfalls like these - it’s part of the sport, and all the teams know it. They’ll be disappointed, but they’ll learn from it and come back stronger the next time.
