Laird Hamilton And Team Surfing USA Maintain Second Place After A Solid Start
by Zach Weisberg Online Editor

As of Sunday night at 8:30 PM PST, Team Surfing USA is off to a solid start with a firm grip of second place as they head into the rough terrain of Utah. We caught up with Laird Hamilton and the team’s Crew Manager Don King from the road:

“Right now we’re moving,” says Laird. “We’re at checkpoint ten, which is probably a bit over 500-miles east of the starting line. It’s tough. It’s brutal, this race. Trying to maintain nutrition has been pretty difficult, but we’re still chomping at the bit. I’m actually just about to get some rest right now.”

“They’re going hard,” says Crew Manager Don King. “They’re in second place right now, and there are little things that make huge difference like if you don’t get enough food then you hit the wall; they were in the lead for most of the race thus far, and one of the guys hit a wall and lost the lead. A lot of little things can be critically important with a race like this, but we’re not too far behind. We’ve been in Arizona almost all day, and we’re about to hit Utah and then hit Monument Valley at dusk.”

“It’s pretty amazing to be going 24 hours a day," King said. "The most rest they’re getting is about four hours of sleep each day, but they’ll get a little sleep tonight doing some shifts of two guys on and two guys off. Thus far they’ve been rotating two guys in every half hour.“

“Right now an Austrian team of triathletes is in front. This event takes the triathlon to another level, because you don’t have the recovery time, and at least a triathlon is over in one day…this is five.”

Check back to SurferMag.com each day for live updates on Laird Hamilton and Team Surfing USA’s Race Across America.