Brought to you by the creators of multi-EMMY® Award-winning reality series The Amazing Race, producers Bertram Van Munster and Elise Doganieri introduce Race to The Center of The Earth, a new adrenaline-packed global competition series premiering on National Geographic Channel on March 30.
RACE TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is an extreme non-elimination competition that pits four teams of three against one another, with each team racing from four remote corners of the planet — South America, Russia, Canada and Southeast Asia. The teams face untamed jungles, frozen arctic, arid deserts, bustling cities, treacherous mountains and vast oceans to reach the final location where all four routes intersect — a buoy holding the grand prize of USD$1 Million. The first team to arrive at the buoy claims it all.
The race is divided into two stages: for Stage One, each team is randomly assigned a different international route, and the contestants must travel a daily course of epic physical challenges within a set time frame. They are given a GPS device containing a number of waypoints indicating the route they must follow. Points given through Stage One will be tracked by the producers and are broken up as follows:
- Arrive at the End of Day Waypoint before the grace period — TWO points
- Arrive at the End of Day Waypoint within the grace period or on pace — ONE point
- Arrive at the End of Day Waypoint after the grace period — ZERO points
- Teams that do not complete the daily course in the allotted time are moved to the final waypoint for safety and lose ONE point.
The team with the most points at the end of Stage One has a starting position advantage at the beginning of Stage Two. In this final stage, teams race head-to-head, with the first team to reach the buoy holding the grand prize named the winner.
The adventurous teams, made up of friends and co-workers, are confident their bond is what will lead them to the finish line. The four teams include Team Russia, a group of colleagues from Anchorage, Alaska, who have known each other for 15 years and have been together through highly intense situations and personal milestones, race through a variety of terrains in Russia; Team North America, a team of co-workers from Denver, Colorado, who consider each other family, trek their way through the Canadian wilderness; Team South America, who boulder their way through daily intense training back home in San Diego, California, trek through the glaciers and more in South America; and Team Southeast Asia from Seattle, Washington, who have bonded over their love of adventure, travel and the outdoors, travel through Southeast Asia.
After six months of rigorous prep work and scouting hundreds of locations covering more than 56,000 kilometres around the globe, a highly experienced team of producers and cinematographers hit the ground running, literally. Cameras follow the contestants, mirroring their actions as they take on various challenges that test their limits of strength, speed and stamina.
Catch the epic seven-part series on National Geographic Channel (CIGNAL: CH 141 SD, CH 240 HD / SKYCABLE: CH 41 SD, CH 195 HD) on March 30 at 10am, with a primetime repeat at 10pm.
