(Originally written for and published at: www.ecoprimalquest.com).

Deus ex Machina

PQ CEO loves the smell of Nuun in the afternoon

June 30, 2006

By Ken White

Back in the early days of Greek theater, playwrights invented a useful little device. If they had written their characters into a corner, a hopelessly tangled situation from which there appeared to be no escape, everything could be solved. A god appeared, hovering over the stage, and used his or her supernatural powers to set everything right. Problems solved, the god ascended back to heaven, and the mortals went on with their pale existences.

Rich Brazeau got to play both playwright and god today, and a bunch of teams got their racing lives set right.

The scene: Somewhere near CP26, on a 65-mile mountain bike leg, Day 5 of PQ, with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees.

The players: Teams Hombres de Maiz, Discovery/Velvet, TNT Canada, Balanced Athlete, your embedded journalist.

The problem: CP26 does not appear to be where CP26 ought to be.

The action: Teams are making like the Marx Brothers, circling around almost at random; popping up in unexpected places from unexpected directions; clustering for head-scratching and then spinning off on different bearings. At one point, Team Hombres de Maiz and Team Discovery approached each other from opposite directions, despite having departed from the same location about 30 minutes earlier.

The crisis: CP26 is less than halfway between CP25 and the next water source. Teams that spend too many hours spinning their wheels fruitlessly risk going into a downward dehydration spiral.

The solution: Deus ex machina.

Your embedded journalist was traveling with Hombres de Maiz during this episode. As the GPS tracks of our team and others’ indicate, we were making less-than-zero progress towards finding the CP.

Our navigator, John Markez, was doing the familiar “it looks like it should be here, but maybe it’s here; was there a turnoff on the road to the left?” self-doubt routine. The other teams were in varied states of despair, from incipient to on-the-edge, and our attempts at collective intelligence were probably yielding net lower IQs all around.

At the edge of consciousness, a helicopter rises above a distant mesa, thrumming in our direction.

It makes a looping flyover.

“Great,” I think, “They’re shooting footage for the blooper reel of lost teams riding around aimlessly. Am I wearing recognizable clothing?”

Another helo pops up and begins circling. Someone inside is gesturing and pointing. The copters seem to be trying to herd us and the other teams. We oblige, and the chopper sets down on a level patch nearby. Out pops Rich Brazeau with a couple of cases of water and a box of Nuun electrolyte tablets.

“It’s really hot out here,” says the vision that doubles as PQ CEO, “And we could see by the GPS tracking that you guys were really struggling.”

Some ungrateful wretch amongst our company suggests that the CP is misplotted or misplaced. Rich doesn’t say that it’s in the wrong place, but he doesn’t say it’s in the right place either.

It is best not to argue with a man in possession of water, a helicopter, and your race entry.

Brazeau generously offers to hover over the actual CP26 location, so that even we can find it. We do.

We level our kvetching at CP Captain Kris Richard, who obligingly notes that many other teams had trouble finding CP26 as well. Although, he adds pointedly, not Nike PowerBlast or Merrell/Wigwam. Race legend John Howard was out here with a GPS and confirmed the location of this checkpoint, he points out.

“Well, what does John Howard know,” one of the Kiwis demands. “These newcomers think they know everything!”

Pride restored, and scapegoats scaped, we push off for CP27. As we near the ridge line above CP26, we see the helicopter landing again. In the same place.

Being a god is busy business.