UPDATE: You can skip ahead to just read my final comment at the bottom here, it's more concise and answers the objections.
The Gear Junkie posted a great Open Letter To: Adventure Race Directors that has a lot of valid points. As is typical with niche sports in general and AR specifically, it's garnering a lot of passionate responses.
I had to include my opinion, especially because once again, people are taking potshots at Primal Quest for the whitewater section in Montana. Since I was technically in charge of that, and since the facts seem to never be correct, I've made it a point to correct people when I hear the subject broached.
Read the 15-point list, as it has some great points, and then here's my comment:
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Great points, although I think GPS removes too much of the human / mental aspect which often determines the outcome of a race.
WHITEWATER
Of course, I'm all for whitewater, and have heard many racers wishing for this as well.
But it's true that whitewater is the most dangerous element in AR, and the one that is for many people, the most mentally difficult. It's also the toughest to have safety for, even more so than climbing.
However, utilizing class II up to class III would keep things much safer and give most experienced racers an enjoyable whitewater section, and novice whitewater athletes an exhilarating one.
BOGUS STORIES ABOUT PQ MONTANA
As for Gold Rush Adventure Races comment about Primal Quest Montana being "lucky no one was killed": were you there? Because if not, you're going off total hearsay and rumors which were NOT true. Nobody "almost died".
The woman that thought she almost died and subsequently went viral was (fortunately) wearing a gopro, and despite her 20 minutes of absolute hysterics (on camera), was only under water for LITERALLY 3 seconds. She and her riverboard went into a hole and went deep, then popped out. If she'd trained for it as strongly suggested by PQ leading up to the race, she'd have been better prepared to handle an occurrence which happens frequently on the river.
We had an awesome safety team in place at every dangerous area, and the one whitewater section that was deemed too high, everyone was forced to portage. We also had to cut out 80+ miles of what was supposed to be flatwater kayaking, because it actually was flooding and dangerous.
It does irk me though how much incorrect information is floating around about that whitewater section – I've run into people in the far corners of the globe talking sh** about it, and the facts are always incorrect.
It annoys me mainly because the race directors are thus seen in a negative light, which isn't correct or fair to them. They put a lot of faith in me to make the right call(s), and what resulted was one of the more intense whitewater sections in an AR event. It would have been that without the crazy weather.
Frankly, I'm proud to have been involved in it, because in my opinion, the whitewater finally measured up with the rest of the world-class section disciplines that PQ and other big races are famed for.
Shutting the whitewater section down once the back of the pack teams started coming through on no sleep was the right thing to do as well. But it wasn't because the water was rising (it was subsiding as the day wore on) or because it was so dangerous (see: the top dozen or so teams that had no problems and actually enjoyed it).
Primal Quest is billed as the "world's most challenging human endurance race", so you'd think teams would PREPARE, maybe, yes?
Nobody talks about the fact that the top teams all did just fine in the whitewater section. Team Nike, who had properly trained and were using correct equipment (not showing up with Walmart boogie boards), loved it and flew through both the kayaking and riverboarding.
It was the back of the pack teams who hadn't trained at all in whitewater and thought that a little piece of foam would do the trick for riverboarding, or that hadn't done much (if any) whitewater paddling, that had issues.
The problem with whitewater in AR is that people don't take it seriously. THAT is why it becomes such a dangerous discipline.
AR PRO LEAGUE
I think Corey Rosen's idea about creating a "pro" league is a great idea as well (http://www.usarl.net), because it solves a lot of problems, especially the spectator one. Spectators mean sponsors which mean money into the sport.
But why would people watch? And if they could watch – and the idea is to build courses where they could – would they even want to?
Yes, but only if the athletes were top notch. Nobody is going to watch neighbor Joe and his beer belly slogging through a race, just like nobody goes to 24 Hour Fitness to be a spectator for the pickup basketball games.
At every big race, there are a dozen or so teams that really define what it means to be an elite AR athlete. That doesn't take anything away from the rest of the field – they're good athletes in their own right, and if they finish an Expedition race, they should be proud of that.
But for this discussion, you have to separate the majority of AR athletes from the best of the best.
They're the athletes that people would pay to watch. They're the athletes that collect sponsor dollars. They're the athletes that inspire people to get into the sport. They're the athletes that everyone else wants to be.
The Mike Kloser's, the Richard Ussher's, the Robyn Benincasa's.
The biggest problem I see with the sport is quite honestly reflected most clearly in the whitewater conversation – it's extremely difficult for race organizers to create events which cater to both the best in the world and the person who might be a good athlete but has never been in a kayak in
their life, or gets scared of heights on a 2nd story balcony.
That's the fundamental problem, and it's not unique to AR – every niche sport deals with it. Wanting to make the sport accessible to the masses, so the "events" which are the big draws, are open to all.
That's not going to work in the long run.
Make the events which cater to the best in the world extremely challenging. Make the events catering to "everybody", easier and as mind-blowing as possible in terms of scenery and fun.
Don't make races painfully awful just for the sake of making them "hard", especially if the goal is to get new people to fall in love with the sport! If they want painfully difficult, they'll go to a week of SEAL training or some other survivalist camp.
Challenging, yes. But worth the effort and the pain – memorable, inspiring, beautiful, fun.
The sport can be both "adventure" and pro-level "racing". Each word has its target market though, and they are – or should be - vastly different. Which I think would solve a lot of the issues in this discussion.