What do you get when you take the reigning Checkpoint Tracker series champs and pit them against their former team captain?  Taco Bell wars apparently.

Meet Peter Jolles and Jon Barker, current captains of CP0 and ATP/CP0 respectively.

CP0 are the reigning CPT series champions and are Abu Dhabi veterans, yet they’ve fielded several teams to the USARA nationals and haven’t had the same success.  According to Peter, it’s become a team tradition to have a great season and “throw it all away at the end” because it only fires them up for the following season, but it sounds as though the main reason they keep returning is for the free post-race beer.

Jon is the former captain of CP0 and the brand new captain of ATP/CP0 – he claims the change occurred because he’s “old, slow, and smells like a dead ferret” but I’m pretty sure he still has a trick or two hidden up his sleeves (could be where that dead ferret smell is coming from).  During his retirement from CP0, Jon has been enjoying a bit of mini golfing, cheese rolling, bog snorkeling, couch snoozing, and Taco Bell splurging – he’s back with a vengeance at the Atomic simply because he couldn’t come up with an excuse quick enough to dodge the cut.

Joining Jon will be Scott Pleban and Jennifer Rinderle.  Scott is an old friend of Jon’s from ATP whom he met during the inaugural Swamp Stomp where they said a grand total of 3 words to each other.  A few years ago, the two of them competed in the Michigan Coast to Coast and shared an interesting night paddle with a snake in the canoe which eventually capsized.  Jon claims he quit AR altogether at that point, but it seems as though he’s had a change of heart.

Peter Jolles finds that change of heart amusing and seems to be looking forward to competing against Jon at the Atomic, even if it is only to steal his secret Taco Bell stash.  Peter has raced against Scott plenty of times and claims to have spent most of that time staring at Scott’s backside.  He also extends his pity to Scott, who is “going to have his work cut out for him towing Jon and keeping Jenn focused.”

While many teams tend to field two teams at one race, who then join forces and take on the course as one cohesive unit, the last thing you can expect to see will be these two CP0’s holding hands, singing Kumbaya.  Jon plans to “poodle along, complain the whole time, overload the microwaves with [his] Taco Bell, then oversleep” and miss the second stage of the race.  In the meantime, Peter claims that CP0 will be rummaging through Jon’s bags, eating all of his Taco Bell before ATP/CP0 even reaches Stage 1.  And what happens if ATP/CP0 overtakes CP0?  Peter will be revoking their CP0 jerseys and finding an extra form of punishment in addition to devouring their Taco Bell.  Don’t worry though; Jon intends to challenge them to a “how much cold pizza can you eat” competition in order to reclaim his jersey, and his Taco Bell.