2X Men: RMORC Dominates as 22 Teams Conquer Salton Sea to Palomar

• RMORC wins in 16:48:00 — Nick Doelman (age 47, Elma, WA) and Kyle Deerkop (age 42, Aberdeen, WA) hold the men's lead wire-to-wire at 12:27/mi, with Deerkop posting the fastest men's split on the USN Tower→Borrego segment and Doelman the second-fastest.
• Two Vets (Krygier & Cantrell) finish 2nd at 17:15:35 — 27:35 back, with Matt Cantrell running the fastest men's split on the CA Trail→Pena segment and Kenny Krygier the second-fastest on the same stretch.
• NYARA (Rice & Shaddow) make the biggest climb of the day, moving from 14th in the men's field at the first checkpoint all the way to 3rd by the finish in 18:20:09.
• Sea Sufferers (Campbell & Shamburg) finish 5th at 20:10:00 — a massive improvement for a team that crossed this same finish line in 24:36:12 back in 2025.

RMORC owned the 2X Men race from the opening miles. Kyle Deerkop and Nick Doelman — both hailing from Washington state — never relinquished the men's lead across all seven tracked checkpoints, holding 1st and 2nd in the men's standings throughout. Their 16:48:00 finish at 12:27/mi over an 81-mile point-to-point from Salton City (234 feet below sea level) to Palomar Mountain (5,500 feet up, with over 9,000 feet of total elevation gain) is a statement performance. The USN Tower→Borrego segment belonged to them entirely: Deerkop fastest, Doelman second-fastest among all men on that stretch.

Two Vets — Kenny Krygier (Townsend, DE) and Matt Cantrell (Whitestown, IN) — had a slightly bumpier ride, slipping as far back as 6th in the men's field at one checkpoint before recovering to lock in 2nd place at 17:15:35. Their strength came late: Cantrell ran the fastest men's split on CA Trail→Pena and Krygier the second-fastest on the same segment, a powerful one-two punch that sealed the runner-up spot at 12:47/mi.

The most compelling story of the day belonged to NYARA — Chris Rice (Suffern, NY, age 52) and Mike Shaddow (New York, NY, age 49) — who were buried in 14th in the men's field early before methodically picking off teams across the course. By the finish they had climbed all the way to 3rd, crossing in 18:20:09 at 13:35/mi. Rice's 5th-fastest men's split on CA Trail→Pena was a key weapon in that charge.

Further back, Sea Sufferers (Justin Campbell & Daniel Shamburg, both of Encinitas, CA) delivered a remarkable turnaround, finishing 5th at 20:10:00 — nearly four and a half hours faster than their 2025 time of 24:36:12 on this same course. Bayou Bananas (Carter Frankum, 22, and John Finnigan, 23, from Denver and New Canaan) brought some of the youngest legs in the field, finishing 6th at 20:42:35, just ahead of Double Dragao (Scott Jenkins & Ruben Guimaraes) at 20:49:59. All 22 teams in the 2X Men field reached Palomar Mountain — a full finisher sheet on one of the Badwater series' most demanding courses.