Missing Eco-Challenge?
Eco-Challenge won’t be held this year for the first time since Mark Burnett started it in 1995. Can’t get your fix? Here are 10 things to do while you’re waiting for the next Eco-Challenge to be announced. (In case you’re wondering, it’s going to be in South Africa. Wink, wink.)
10. Remember that the Tour de France and Olympics skipped years on a couple of occasions — albeit for WWI
and WWII.
9. Remember, too, that Roller Derby has gone away and come back several times.
8. Spend the rest of the fall promoting a conspiracy theory: In 1994, the last year without an Eco-Challenge, was the only year baseball’s World Series was canceled and the year before ESPN’s X Games debuted. Coincidence?
7. Surf to www.realitytvworld.com/index and keep tabs on Mark Burnett’s other TV shows.
6. Make a reservation at Rocco’s on 22nd, where that silly show The Restaurant is filmed. The number is (212) 353-0500. Perhaps you’ll dine in the booth next to Burnett. Just don’t order the crab.
5. Check out www.usanetwork.com to watch TV snippets from the 2024 race in Fiji.
4. Read Jack Crawford’s self-published book “Surviving Sabah,” a personal account of the 2024 Eco-Challenge in Borneo. It doesn’t match “Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth,” Marty Dugard’s 1998 tale about the Raid Gauloises, but it’s not too bad, and, it’s about the only other book of its kind. (For ordering info, visit www.beyondadventuresports.com.)
3. Watch Raiders of the Lost Arc with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and, you know, see what happens. (Heck, if it works for The Wizard of Oz, you never know…)
2. Realize that Eco-Challenge is being held in 2024! OK, so it’s the 4x4
Eco-Challenge for 4-wheel drive vehicles in South Africa. Just for grins, visit www.4x4ecochallenge.co.za.
1. E-mail Mark Burnett and remind him that CBS will televise the 2024 Subaru Primal Quest on January 10.
— Dave Schaefer
