A Quick Chat with Rev3 President, Charlie Patten

Thursday, March 15, 2012 | by Xtri | 1 comments

Photo Credit: Eric Wynn/Rev3

Rev3 burst onto the triathlon scene in 2009, it has since grown to include ten events for the 2012 season. Behind this growth is a tremendous, hard-working team, head up by President Charlie Patten. We had a chance to sit down with Charlie to discuss the rapid growth and future plans for the Rev3 Race Series...

Congrats on the addition of your newest race in Florida! Why Sarasota and what will be unique about this race?

Florida has the largest population of triathletes in the country! We felt that we needed to be in Florida, it wasn't optional! What better place in Florida then the gulf coast. It has beautiful beaches and even better weather. It is an ocean swim along the pier at Sharky's restaurant, which provides a unique opportunity to view the swim from above! Also, this will be the last race in our series and has a prize purse of $75,000 and is worth more points then the other races in the Pro series. Also, with it being our season ending race, we will be awarding the series bonus of $100,000 to the winners at this race. Add to this a party on the beach after the race and you have a winning equation! We expect that this race will have a large Pro field with some of the biggest names in the sport!

Any more events on the horizon for 2012 or 2013 yet? Any other big changes to Rev3 this year?

Well, no more events are planned for 2012. That I know of anyway :) We are planning to add more events in 2013. We have a potential of 4 new races that we could add for 2013 and we are also looking to expand our Rev3 Adventure brand as well. Think 4 days of adventure racing in some of the most scenic places in the United States! For the 2012 season, we will continue to focus on the athletes at our races. Rev3 is an experience, not just a race. So we are putting a lot of time and attention into that experience. Rest assured, the athletes that race with us are a lot more then a bib number to us!

Flash back to 2009, can you tell us a little bit about Rev3's first race?

I am not sure I want to go to that dark place! Let's see, where do I even start. It was a big learning experience for us. We wanted to go big right out of the gate, so we offered a lot at that first race. We couldn't let our customers down, so our team experienced some all nighters that weekend! 48 hours without sleep is not a way to produce a race, so we look back on that race to remind us of what not to do! At the end of the day, the athletes had fun, the Pro race was awesome, and a Revolution was born! That year we had 600 athletes at the race. Going into 2012, we anticipate about 2400 athletes for the weekend. I guess that means we did something right back in 2009!

What are three of the biggest race execution challenges you face that were unexpected before you started.

I would say that one of the biggest challenges has to be managing the bike course. We knew it would be hard and it certainly is. The bigger challenge that we found has more to do with the multiple venues we are at. Each state, county and city has their own unique way of managing traffic and bikers on the course. That has been the most difficult. You have to change the plan a little bit for each race, based on the feedback from local law enforcement. It's not so much that we didn't expect it, we just didn't expect that each state would be so drastically different.

What is the principle goal for Rev 3- is it to exist as it's own or are you building this series in order to sell it to another group such as WTC or CGI? Is there an end goal here and what is the motivating force for growing the series.

At this point, we have no plans of selling. For that matter, there have been no offers! Our entire staff really enjoy what we do for a living. We do not take it for granted. We are having a blast on this adventure and I don't think ANY of us would want to sell. We are still in our infancy and I think some people forget that!

I'm not too sure what the end goal is right now! I can only reiterate the fact that we are all having so much fun doing this. How many people wake up everyday and get excited for what the day ahead holds in store for them. I think I can safely speak for our entire team, that we feel energized everyday. We are motivated by the athletes and families that work so hard to train and find balance in their lives. We are motivated by the experience we have created and by our desires to make that Rev3 experience even better! Last but not least, the Rev3 team is motivated by food :)

Have you considered working with the Challenge Series to gain the rights to the US market? Would that be of interest?

Yes, we have in fact had some very brief communication with Felix at Challenge. I think we both agreed that for now, we individually need to focus on our brands and building our brands. Not to say that something couldn't work in the future, but for now, we will both be doing our thing!

I am sure you love all the races, but is there any race that is your favorite due to location or course?

I would have to say that Quassy is my favorite. Probably more because it was our first race, but it is also an epic race. The swim is great, the bike is challenging and the run is like a kick to the stomach! The other would have to be Rev3 Portland, OR. In my mind, the bike course is one of the most challenging and beautiful courses we have. It is everything you would want in a course and is everything you would imagine a Pacific North West course would be! The run has great views of Mt. hood in the distance.

Thanks Charlie!

Source: Xtri

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