Cape Fear Bandits Lead Wire-to-Wire at Badwater Salton Sea

• Cape Fear Bandits (Small & Garber) won in 17:34:30 — finishing 1:38:23 ahead of 2nd place, the largest margin in the top half of the field.
• 2nd and 3rd separated by just 4:07 — It's Literally Kaylee and Star (19:12:53) edged Honey Badger Trifecta (19:17:00) in the closest battle of the day.
• A six-team cluster — places 9 through 13 — finished within 20 minutes of each other across a span of roughly 10 miles of racing time.
• Two solo runners entered the team field: Worst Pace Scenario (Corfman, 18th, 24:37:16) and Coyote, Roadrunner, & Bugs Bunny (Heise, 19th, 27:23:00) — both completing the full 81 miles alone.

Erika Small and Andrew Garber, racing as Cape Fear Bandits out of Oak Park, CA, owned this race from start to finish. Their 17:34:30 — a 13:01/mi average across 81 miles of desert, single-track, and 9,000-plus feet of climbing from 234 feet below sea level to Palomar Mountain at 5,500 feet — was in a class of its own. No other team cracked 19 hours. That 1:38:23 cushion over the runner-up isn't a margin you stumble into; it's a statement.

The fight for the podium, however, was a genuine contest. Starshine Blackford and Kaylee Frederick — It's Literally Kaylee and Star, making the trip from Columbus, OH — took 2nd in 19:12:53 at a 14:14/mi pace. Just 4:07 behind them, the Urbana, IL trio of Honey Badger Trifecta (Ramses Armendariz, Martin Gruebele, and Michael Davis) crossed in 19:17:00. Four minutes after nearly 19 hours of racing is a razor-thin gap, and it's worth noting that Honey Badger Trifecta did it with three runners covering the same ground — a logistical and physical challenge of its own.

From 4th through 13th, the field compressed dramatically. Our Place (Cozad & Partyka, Reno) came in 4th at 21:01:00, but then six teams — Rita's Men, Chasing Who, Blonde Bombshells, Wild Winter Women, Cactus Queens, and Two Be Determined — all finished between 22:14:57 and 24:50:08, with places 9 through 13 separated by a mere 19:48. Sand to Summiteers and Breaking Bad (23:16:30 and 23:18:15, respectively) staged their own tight finish, just 1:45 apart for 6th and 7th.

Perhaps the most remarkable individual stories belong at the back of the results sheet. David Corfman (Worst Pace Scenario) and Mark Heise (Coyote, Roadrunner, & Bugs Bunny) each tackled this course without a teammate — no one to share the miles, the climbs, or the dark hours with. Corfman finished 18th in 24:37:16; Heise completed the journey in 27:23:00. In a race built around partnership, finishing alone is its own kind of feat.