Mike Bitton, the first (and only) member of the Army of Zero has been given his marching orders for the remainder of 2008.

Starting next week Mike will be attending no less than four events through the end of the season to report for Checkpoint Zero.

First up is Primal Quest which starts in just over 8 days.

Mike will be taking out a second mortgage on his house to pay for the gas he'll need to drive from his home in Vancouver, WA to Big Sky country.

He's gonna do the loner thing and live out of his car for the duration. He tells me he's called in few favors and has lined up a short list of support crews that have graciously offered to let him hose off in their RV from time to time.

After a short visit back home we're then sending Mike across the pond to cover the Mountain X Race which runs from July 21st to 26th in France. He'll be following the exploits of the US teams racing for American pride.

In October Mike will be "coming home" to cover our own Upstate Adventure Race. He did such a great job shooting the Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race this past March we decided it was worth the cost of another plane ticket to bring him back for our newest event...gotta get those great marketing shots no matter the cost.

The best part of having Mike on the ground in October is that he'll be able to begin his coverage of the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge at the same time.

Say what?

In case you missed it...we recently announced that the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority has signed on as the latest sponsor of the Upstate Adventure Race.

The team that wins in October will be given a free entry and 4 round trip tickets to Abu Dhabi to compete in the second edition of this epic new expedition race in December. We're sending Mike with that team to document their trip from start to finish.