The Sahara Race is part of the 4 Deserts, named by TIME magazine as one of the Top 10 Endurance Competitons in the world

Roughly 130 competitors from 30 countries will be competing in the Sahara Race 2009

The largest contingent of competitors will come from the United Kingdom with 34

Roughly 80% of the competitors are male and twenty percent are female

One competitor is blind, Ron J. Hackett, of Canada

The youngest is a 19 year old from Korea, Jye Seung Lee, and the oldest is Jack Denness, 74, from Wales, UK

There are seven teams competing

Four individuals will be eligible for membership in the 4 Deserts Club upon completing the Sahara Race

Ji Sung Yoo of Korea holds the world record for completing the most 4 Deserts events -- 12

There is a Cybertent with fifteen laptops for emails, blogs and results

The Sahara Desert is the largest non-polar desert in the world

The Western Desert of Egypt, a part of the Sahara Desert, covers a total area of 2.8 million sq km and is bordered by Libya in the west, Sudan in the south and the Mediterranean in the north

There are only five isolated oasis in this vast expanse of the Western Desert

Farafra Oasis is the smallest oasis in the Western Desert

The largest excavation of mummies was made in a 6 sq km area around Bahariya in the late 1990s, in an area close where the Sahara Race will take place