"Congratulations, you've qualified for the Race Across America!" said John Marino as he shook my hand in Twentynine Palms, CA. Much to my surprise - and his - I had won the RAAM Open West in April 1989 on the course that would become known as the Furnace Creek 508.

I'd been entranced by RAAM since Jim Lampley's broadcasts on ABC earlier in the 1980s. In 1988 I'd ridden PAC Tour with Lon Haldeman and Susan Notorangelo and talked with them about RAAM. On that PAC I'd become friends with Pete Penseyres. When I got home I called him and we talked at length about what doing RAAM entailed. Lee "Mr. Crew Chief" Mitchell had crewed for me at the qualifier and I picked his brain about whether I could do RAAM. But I couldn't make the mental, emotional, and physical leap from a 500-mile race to a 3,000 event. Could I do it?

On June 19, 2004 eleven rookies stood next to Rob Kish, Wolfgang Fasching, Juré Robic and other veteran RAAM racers in San Diego, CA.

Each asked the same question that I had: Could I do it? Each was committed to finishing the race but also clearly anxious about whether that was possible.

Stephen Auerbach filmed the 2004 Race Across America and put the rookie quest at the center of the feature film that he created. I saw the film at the Boulder International Film Festival and thought that it was one of the best RAAM films ever made, reminiscent of Jim Lampley's ABC broadcasts.

The Boulder Film Festival agreed: Race Across America won the Grand Jury Prize as the Best Adventure Film. Only three of the nearly 100 films in the Festival won awards of this magnitude. One was for Best Feature Film, one was for Best Documentary, and Race Across America won for Best Adventure film.

Auerbach used 12 professional camera people traveling with different racers plus had footage from five other cameras operated by riders' crew members.

He screened the footage and decided "to follow the stories that I felt a general audience would find interesting."

He focused on five rookies:

• Tracy McKay, who had finished two-man RAAM in 2002, saw solo RAAM as not just a physical challenge but also a spiritual quest.
• Mountain guide Andy Lapkass, who had summited Everest three times, and had to have his toes amputated after a night out on the mountain.
• James Rosar, racing in remembrance of his mother, with a skeleton crew.
• David Haase, a bike shop owner who hoped for a high finish despite his rookie status.
• Randy Van Zee, a modest man from Iowa.

Victor Gallo went to the Festival me. Victor finished solo RAAM in 1990 at age 58, raced Team RAAM in '95 on the record-setting age 60+ PAC Masters, and with his wife, Gladys, has crewed several races.

We watched Van Zee's crew strap his head to a neck brace, lean his bike way over, and lift his leg over the top tube. Van Zee had a pulled groin muscle and couldn't lift his leg. That "pulled muscle" turned out to be a cracked pelvis from a fall during the race - but he finished.

We saw Haase suffering from dehydration and low blood sodium, almost delirious but determined to finish, clipped into his pedals, leaning on a guardrail, trying to regain his balance and ride into the dark night. He finally had to drop out after 2,507 miles due to overhydration and kidney damage..

The camera caught Rosar, off-course and asking for directions in a café - and his crew driving frantically, wondering where he was. Exhaustion felled him after 1,191 miles.

Lapkass: learning to ride with amputated toes before he could walk . . . crew washing his feet . . . wife Abby trying to find something his stomach would accept . . . always cheerful despite the pain and fatigue . . . liver and kidney failure due to breakdown of muscle fiber put him out of the race at 1,074 miles.

Every rider is beset by a string of problems - and finishing RAAM depends on whether the crew and rider can solve, or at least tolerate, the problems. McKay got dehydrated the first day; we saw his contorted face and body. He was in good company: we also saw three-time winner Wolfgang Fasching in his van getting an IV for dehydration. While McKay was rehydrating he and his crew prayed together and drew energy from each other. He continued until day three when he strained a quad muscle. He couldn't pedal the next 2200 miles with just one leg.

At the front of the race Auerbach showed the battle between Robic and Trevino. The camera caught Robic screaming at his crew. One night Trevino talked passionately about the beauty of riding under the stars. And the film portrays all the ugliness of the allegations by Robic's crew that Trevino was cheating.

Covering the team division Auerbach spent considerable time on Team Vail. Brett Malin, racing in RAAM 2003 for Vail, was killed by a truck. A very powerful and elegiac scene evokes what the accident might have been like. And Auerbach skillfully probes and portrays the depths of the Vail racers and crew in 2004.

The fast racing scenes between Team Action Sports and Team Vail, battling for first, are the best cycling action in the movie. Scenes of team racers riding flat out are intercut with the deterioration of the rookies.

The team that gets the most coverage, not surprisingly, is the 70+ Grand PAC Masters. Bob Kash says he can still do anything he could do when he was younger, it just takes a bit longer. Lee Mitchell, fuzzy long beard flying in the wind as he races. Chris Stauffer having the ride of his life. Ron Bell showing the huge bruise on his hip, the result of a crash.

By placing the five rookies at the center of the film Auerbach comes closer that any other filmmaker to capturing all the pain, fatigue, tension and mental confusion that is RAAM.

I asked him afterwards how he learned so much about RAAM. Stephen Ricci, Lampley's partner, called him to a meeting about filming RAAM. In the introduction to Michael Shermer's book about RAAM Lampley wrote that for him the most memorable of all sporting events was the Great American Bike Race in 1982. Auerbach: "Lampley has covered more major sports events than just about any journalist on earth and for him to tip his hat to RAAM in this way took my breath away. Immediately, I had to know more!"

"Next, I screened the ABC coverage of the first RAAM. I was overwhelmed by the challenge, the characters and the myth of Lon. He appeared from nowhere to become a Babe Ruth-ian figure."

"Next, I read the articles of Perry Stone - the Hunter Thompson/Damon Runyon of ultracycling. His nimble writing and blazing insights captured my imagination and inspired the artist within me with a new ambition: to do justice to this race, on film, as Perry had done, in print."

"My final inspiration was Allen Larsen. He and I had dozens of phone conversations until we finally met in Redondo Beach for lunch one afternoon. Through Allen I began to explore the heart of a true cycling warrior."

Order the movie Order the movie at the RAAM store: www.raceacrossamerica.org UMCA members get a 15% discount if you quote the "secret code" of "UMCA" when you order, and RAAM will also donate $10 to the UMCA for each order.