We were going to run in this race no matter what, so we never summed up the competition.

We weren't worried about going from turf to dirt. He runs well on the main track and loves the distance of a mile and an eighth.

She's a horse that kind of waits when she gets to the lead. I don't think she's a big finisher - she's more a steady, keep-them-at-bay-horse. We're in good shape. It'll be a question if she has the class to fit in with this bunch.

The Volvo Ocean Race is a long competition and this is only beginning.

[He'd better be, because the new space race already is under way and competition is shaping up as fierce. Rutan's chief rival may ultimately be Elon Musk. A former Internet mogul who in 2002 sold his online payment company, PayPal, to eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, Musk now runs SpaceX in El Segundo, Calif., which is developing an orbital space vehicle. Musk notes that making it into orbit requires going eight times faster and producing 65 times more rocket energy than a suborbital vehicle like SpaceShipOne. Musk has already put more than $50 million into SpaceX and says he is prepared to invest $50 million more. He expects it to take at least five years to get passengers into orbit. In the meantime, SpaceX is generating revenue by booking orders to launch satellites; its first such launch is scheduled for January.] Our earned revenue will be $35 million after a little more than two years of operation, ... By comparison, the X-Prize was a one-off of $10 million, and it took Burt something like five years to do it.

The level of competition is fairly equal. I think there is a lot of credibility that goes with both tournaments. For us, the location is what the difference is, but now is the time where you just focus on what's going on on the floor.