Vignette is a team based in Austin, Texas that has been a dominating force among the Lone Star's adventure racing circuit.  The USARA National Point Series had them at 13th last year, and the Checkpoint Tracker Series at 16th.  While these rankings are modest, the story behind them is not.

Vignette accrued its points from 4 Texas wins.  As far as I can tell they were 4 for 4 on 1st places in 2009.  Since 2/4 races were in the Checkpoint Tracker Series and 3/4 races in the USARA National Point Series, it was enough to give them modest rankings in both.  The important points here are twofold:

• when they race, it's usually in Texas
• when they race, they win

The former point is only mostly true, however.  I should say the team largely races in Texas in the shorter races.  However, their members have got Primal Quests and Eco-Challenges under their belts, which deserves respect not just in Texas but worldwide.  And the Leadville 100 certainly helps to bolster team captain Marcy Beard's resume...

But with all those 1st places in 2009, even if they were just local wins, one has to wonder what this will mean for the other top teams at the 2010 Atomic.  After all, Texas is a big state and athletes that do well there tend to do well nationally.  Well, looking at head-to-head results from the USARA National Championship last year (also in Texas), here's where some of them stood:

And a couple of notes here also:

• Green Paw Adventure Sports trailed Vignette by 13 minutes at the race.  If they are anything like me, they'll be looking to make up that 13 minutes at the 2010 Atomic Adventure Race.
• It could be argued that Checkpoint Zero, the 2009 Checkpoint Tracker Series champions, should be on top of that list, and that they had an uncommonly bad race. 
  

Some other notes on head-to-heads for teams on the above list:

• At the 2009 Impossible Panther, Checkpoint Zero managed the win over Green Paw Adventure Sports (then Shake-A-Leg Miami). 
  
• At the 2009 Atomic Adventure Race, Green Paw Adventure Sports placed well ahead of Team SOG (then Nature Cure).

What does all this mean?  For one, the fight for the front is already shaping up with some leading candidates.  But as we saw during last year's race, where none of the favored-to-win teams ended up on the podium, it could yet be anyone's game.