In the very early hours of Friday morning, June 17 at 3:50AM, the Team Suicide Prevention racers crossed the finish line In Durango, Colorado of the 2022 Race Across The West after a grueling 930 mile route in 2d 14h 46m that started in Oceanside, California.

In 22 days, the team of four Team Suicide Prevention racers will start the 930 mile Race Across The West with an amazing support crew. We start in Oceanside, California on June 14th and will race day and night to the finish line in Durango Colorado.

This past weekend, the team came together to practice rider exchanges during a 150 mile training ride from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Perkins, Oklahoma. We used this opportunity to simulate the actual race conditions using route books, gps mapping, vehicle safety lights, rider safety lights, etc. to get as realistic as possible during this training session. Even the weather appeared to cooperate as we had consistent southerly winds of 20 mph gusting up to 42 mph and even had periods of drizzle during the 150 loop. The route included lots of short climbs as well.

We are not exactly the Fantastic Four, however, we are four perhaps slightly better than average "old guy" bicycle riders. We are Bill Taitano (PaPa), Joel Kantor, Tim Whiteside, and Craig Jackson. Between the four of us, our total time on earth is 270 years.

Read about the four racers on Team Suicide Prevention who will race in the Race Across The West

On June 14th, a team of four Team Suicide Prevention bicycle racers will embark along with their awesome support crew in the Race Across The West (RAW for short, even though it’s neither short or easy).

The team would like to extend our sincere thanks to our gracious supporters who have provided prayers, moral support, and financial support to this cause which has enabled Team Suicide Prevention to initiate our Team Suicide Prevention Give Back to Spread Hope initiative in the form of $5,000 donations each to Linda Pulver, Founder of Hope is Oxygen and Dr. Michael Horton, Executive Director at The Coffee Bunker. Team Suicide Prevention could not have asked for two better partners to focus our efforts on to help save lives and spread hope.

Every member of Team Suicide Prevention is compassionate and has a deep desire to help those in need. This past summer, our team of eight racers and eight crew participated in the Race Across America spreading a message of hope and awareness that Suicide is preventable. Even after our finish of the Race Across America in June (3,030 miles in 7d 19h 34m), our team members continue to engage with outreach projects and events that enable us to continue our mission in spreading hope and delivering the message that suicide is preventible and there are organizations such as Hope is Oxygen, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and The Coffee Bunker in our communities there are in place to help fight the suicide epidemic and offer much needed support to those individuals and families in need.