Death Race 2013 Updates

 

Summer Death Race 2013-The Year of the Gambler

While we continue to upload and edit the hours of footage, here Joe Desena discusses his “Extreme Gardening Workshop”

Extreme Gardening Workshopshort

 

 

We have hours of DR coverage and interviews being edited now. Here is a sneak peak of Joe Desena addressing racers, some who wanted to quit, Sunday morning at the 2-3 mile swim.

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Stay tuned as we bring you the rest of the coverage…

June 25, 2013  1:45pm

Peak Races has officially declared the placement of the first 5 men and the top (and only) women for the 2013 Summer Death Race.

Your winners are:

Male: PJ Rakoski (2nd DR Skull)  Female: Camille Adams (First DR Skull)

The remaining top placers are:

Men

2) Ken Lubin (1st Skull)

3) Don Schwartz (2nd Skull)

4) Olof Dallner (4th Skull) (May be only human with 4 Skulls, we are working on to confirm)

5) Will Bowden

Women
2) Stacie Preston  (First Skull)

3) Amelia Boone (Her 3rd Skull)

4) Shelly Koenig (Last Summer’s DR winner, her 2nd Skull)

(only 4 women received skulls)

We are still working on a list of all men and women who received skulls for this year’s event.

We may eventually get a list of “non quitters” who got bibs as well, but that is not in stone.

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen the now famous “Todd Sedlak Quits The Death Race” video, here is your chance.

 

June 23, 2013  11:30pm

A lot has happened today. Most of which can be found on our twitter feed @obstaclemedia.

We will have lots of photos and will catch you up in detail as much as we can in a later post.

For now, you need to know the last challenge of the evening is called The Fitness Challenge which takes place at the poolhouse on Joe’s farm.

When racers arrive they draw a card. The card corresponds to some physical exercise they have to do. (100 burpees, 100 squats, 5 minute plank, etc). They do the exercise, then come back and draw another card. They do this a total of 13 times.

So far there are 15 people who have completed all 13 exercises. These people are now the leaders in the race. Here they are in the order that they finished .

1. PJ Rakoski

2. Donn Schwartz

3. Ken Lubin

4. Olof Dallner

5. Pierre Luc Tremblay

6. Camille Adams

7. Stacie Preston

8. Amelia Boone

9. Alfred Esposito

10. Jeff “Tire Guy” Foster

11. Adam Snider

12. Steven Olivarr

13. Will Bowden

14. Roupen

15. Shelly Koenig

These people were told that the next challenge in the morning will be at The Casino. The Casino is closed until 6:00 a.m. So they can sleep or do whatever they want until then.

There are another 25 or so people also currently doing the exercises. We are not sure how they will handle the remainder of the participants who are somewhere between here and the previous challenge which was the Iron Mine Casino. We assume there will be a cutoff.

 

June 23, 2013  1:30am

Here is the latest list of DNF’s that we believe is 95% accurate.

Aaron McMahon

Adam Lieb

Adam Pichet

Anastasia Drew

Ande Wegner

Andrew Koenig

Angela Emily

Anthony Puntel

Barclay Williamson

Benjamin Sexton

Bill Schlageter

Brian Bresee

Carol Vavrock

Chris Rubino

Christopher Bertini

Christopher Kappil

Christopher Simister

Christopher Sterling

Commodore Mann

Craig Vavrock

Daniel Dodson

Daniel Ricci

Darrel Wurzbach

David Copper

Doug Bowman

Eric Olsen

Erick Garcia

Erick Olsen

Ericka Spelko

Franck Yelles

Gabriel Berkey

Gary Duncan

Hugh Tower Pierce

J.Lee Hoffman

Jacob Bean

James Althaus

James Korak

James Lehner

Jason Bence

Jason Harsayne

Jean Francois Morin

Jeff Fruhwirt

Jeff Mcaslin

Jeremy Jenkins

Jim Goundry

Joe Benoit

John Darling

John Pollock

John Ruane

Kristopher Cicowski

Lance Sanson

Louis Turnbull

Mark Harvey

Matthew Fullum

Matthew Zupan

Michael Mills

Michael Moore

Mike Miller

Mike Sandercock

Nele Schulze

Oliver Butler

Pierre Svartman

Rhett Pyrdum

Rob Genzlinger

RT Kaufman

Ryan Washington

Sabastian Ewerfzumrode

Stephen Reid

Steve Pigott

Stuart Klaas

Timothy Byker

Timothy Francis

Todd Sedlak

William Betteridge

Zoltan Torrico

 

June 23, 2013  12:30am

At around 8:00pm, all the racers left gathered at Riverside Farm. Many had been there for hours having gotten through the various tasks in plenty of time. We also watched a few make it just in time. The ones who had been there a while had time to change clothes, eat a meal and spend some quality time with family. It was for the most part a joyous occasion.

Andy Weinberg came around at about 10 minutes past and reminded them of what was next.

There were others would did not arrive to Riverside until after 8:00pm. Those latecomers were told they were out of the race. Some of them asked to get back in. If they opted to, they could hike up to Roger’s which was 3 miles away. There, they could do chores with others who had been quarantined there all day for various penalties. None of these people at Roger’s know if they are ever going to get out and get to join the Death Race again. They may be put to work for all those hours, then sent home anyway. It’s the year of the gambler, and the racers all know this so no one should be surprised regardless of the outcome.

Andy then gave a speech where he told them they were going to hike for 30 miles. They were told if they are the first to get to the end they can rest. They are going for a 3 mile swim in the morning, but not until the sun comes up. So if you get there early, you can relax and do whatever.

At that point, a few more people dropped out. Then, the remaining 117 or so left Riverside. Almost right after it started to rain. This caused a few more immediate dropouts.

The last count we have as of this writing is 110 still in the race with 15-17 of those at Roger’s doing special tasks and not on the main trail to Blood Root.

Here are several photos from around that time.

 

June 22, 2013  7:45pm

This morning consisted of planting grass and hay bales as the finishing touch to the steps they built last night/this morning.

Next was hours of splitting wood and carrying logs. Then, the racers had to walk with a rock all the way from Amee Farm to Tweed Road carrying a large rock. Then, they had to hike all the way up Tweed where they would meet Peter at a little card table. They had to go through a very intense stretch of barbed wire to retrieve a playing card. Then come back up and present it to Peter. Peter would then draw a “random” card from his deck. If the racers card was higher, they were given a chip and could head back down to Riverside for a break. If their card was lower, they had to crawl back through the barbed wire to get another card.

It didn’t take long to figure out the athletes would lose more than they would win. Everyone came back up with a 2,3,4, or 5. Peter always drew a 6 or higher. The rules were after the first two “card fetches”, you could lose your pack and just go through by without it.

We watched several experienced racers including Mark Webb, get very frustrated after losing this game time after time. Thank goodness 5 times was the maximum number they could go down without moving on either way.

They were told be back at Riverside by 8pm (dusk) for the first major cutoff. We will see what happens then. So far, Joe and Andy have kept their word for the most part. This includes allowing people to rest at Riverside if they did the card/barbed wire challenge and had enough time. We saw many relaxing who were taking advantage of this.

As of now 55 are out of the race. We will see what happens at the dusk cutoff. We are told those who make it to the cutoff will then be rewarded with a 30 mile hike.

Stay tuned for more updates on facebook and twitter.

For now, here are a few more photos.

 

June 22, 2013  1:05am

Here are several photos from a hike up the mountain we took with Joe DeSena inspecting the work of the Death Racers. Some of the participants were doing brute force work moving some massive rocks up the mountain. Some were doing excruciating detailed work.  Digging current rocks out, digging around them, getting them placed properly. Neither job looks like a lot of fun, but most we found were in really good spirits.

Last we heard they will keep going until its finished or 5:00am. Click the photos for a closer look.

 

 

June 21, 2013  11:55pm

As promised, the participants have spent the last 8 plus hours building the never ending stone staircase all the way up the side of the mountain starting at Riverside Farm. We walked the length of the trail with Joe DeSena as he inspected their work. Some was up to par, a lot of it wasn’t, which brings us to our 2nd audio bonus clip of the weekend.

A few hours into the daunting task of building all these steps, athletes were allowed to leave and go buy food for themselves and their teammates. I asked Joe why he was being so nice to them. This is his response.   130621_018

June 21, 2013  5:30pm

At 2pm, all of the participants were gathered up for a big speech by Joe and Andy. Many of them (including the veterans

that had been taken away earlier that morning) had been working on the “Stairway to Heaven”. A staircase made of giant rocks going 1 mile up and covering 1,000 feet of elevation.  Little did they know that the next task would be more of the same, we will get back to that.  For now, here is the highlights of the 2:00pm “start of the race” speech.

• Any chips received for work done yesterday with Don Devaney were now null and void because the Devaney Casino went bankrupt
• The first cutoff is going to be at Riverside Farm at dusk tomorrow (Saturday) night
• The next cutoff is Sunday at Noon-Top 100 people continue
• The next cutoff is Sunday afternoon-Top 40 people continue
• You will need x amount of cards and x amount of chips (plus your tux) to be considered a finisher and get a skull
• They are serious about cutoffs this year.
• If you drop out between now and 8pm, you can go straight home. If you drop out after that, you won’t get your keys for 6 hours after drop out so that you can nap prior to leaving for safety reasons
• If you finish a task early, you can nap in the “pony barn”
• Teams then broke into groups of 10
• Groups may have a chance to vote you out of their group at some point for not working hard(more details will be given later)
• They only have 40 skulls, when they get down to 40 the race is over
• You may get a chance to get back in if you miss a time cutoff. There is no guarantee, but you may get a chance to get back in by doing various chores for Roger who lives on a nearby mountain.
• Your support crew can do hard work with you, (ie building the staircase) but they can’t carry your pack, etc.
• If you finish in 24 hours, you get $100,000

Bonus audio clip: This is what the chaos sounded  like shortly after Joe and Andy stopped talking. 130621_011

The participants then began the task of finishing the “Stairway to Heaven” which will take them all night.

 

 

 

 

 

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June 21, 2013    1:40pm

Here is where we are right now.

Registration took place from 6:00am-9:00am.

Racers checked in and were sent on a short hike to Andy’s house. When they got there, they were met by his 11 year old daughter Jade were they had to roll dice or spin a dreidel to determine a small amount of burpees they would have to do.

After that, they were asked to do a variety of chores such as breaking up rocks into pebbles, digging a ditch, etc. Since many of the DR veterans did not show up until closer to 9:00am. They were punished for “sandbagging it”. So Joe and Andy sent all of the  previous death race finishers out to do some extra chores elsewhere. We have not seen them since.

One particular veteran, Todd Sedlak showed up a few minutes after 9:00am and was punished

with 1,000 burpees. After chores at Andy’s, the rest of the competitors (the official count for starters is 194), were sent up and over Joe’s mountain back down to Amee Farm. At that checkpoint, they were handed a poker chip with a number on it. From there, they were sent back down to Riverside to wait for “the race to start” at 2pm.

We are assuming this is where we will be reunited with all of the veterans who were being punished elsewhere.

Stay tuned on Facebook and Twitter for more updates. In the meantime, here are some photos from this morning’s action.

 

 

 

 

 

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June 20, 2013 | 11:53pm

We spent some time with veteran death racers at a couple of pre race pasta parties earlier this evening. The mood was jovial for most (veterans) and a little frightful for others (newbies).

Registration was officially announced to be between 6:00am-9:00am tomorrow (Friday). I asked several veterans if they thought it was better to show up later or earlier. The overwhelming majority said “later” banking on the notion that earlier means “doing extra work”. We will find out if they are going to be rewarded or punished for that decision here in a few hours.

In the meantime, enjoy these moments we caught on the eve of the official start of the Death Race.

 

 

 

4.5 hours of hard work earned you this from Don Devaney.

 

June 20, 2013 | 1:35pm

On Wednesday a call went out to let Death Racers know that they could earn an extra chip if they showed up at 7:00am today

(Thursday). 35 participants from all over the US (all first timer Death Racers) were met by Don Devaney who led them through a small taste of what is to come this weekend. They spend 4 and a half hours doing several tasks. The first was moving heavy beams of wood from Trailside to Riverside, which is about 6.5 miles. Some of them were then asked to count what amounted to 63,000 pieces of broken glass while others removed nails out of the beams of wood.

They all earned one chip.

How much will this chip be worth in the grand scheme of the race? Something? Nothing? Everything? We shall see.

 

June 18, 2013

The updates will begin Thursday night, June 20, 2013 and end when

a) the last person finishes OR

b) the last person drops and no one finishes OR

c) when Joe and Andy fall asleep.

Come back early and often to see how your favorite Death Racers are doing.