before [the race], we get an email titled ‘Email #5’ and it referred back to the important stuff in emails one, two, three and four, but it doesn’t say what it was,” says Johnny Waite, an ultra-endurance athlete and multi-year veteran of the Death Race. “It just said ‘Remember how important that is.’ And immediately you saw these emails going back saying, ‘I didn’t get the first four. This is ridiculous.’” And Waite admits, even after participating in several races and being fully aware of the games DeSena and Weinberg play, “there’s still something in the back of your head that says ‘Maybe I did miss it,’ and you still go back to your spam folder.” The mind games continue when they send out a gear list weeks ahead, only to change it the day before the race. Along with an ax or maul to chop wood, they’ll ask entrants to bring dress shoes or a needle and thread. One year they required everyone to bring a live fish. “So people are researching what fish are going to survive the best in the race,” says Waite. But later, they took the fish off the gear list and made the entrants try to catch fish with their bare hands during the race. “We like to say [the race] is 80 percent mental and the other 20 percent is mental,” says DeSena. “The reason we have
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Photo: Courtesy of death race
Ninety percent of entrants never finish a Death Race. Last year’s winner finished in 67 hours.
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