A good explanation (finally) of the world championship race format by AR World Series guys themselves Grant from the Untamed New England event. Visit the Adventure World website to read the article.
I wish we had this explained to us before the race and wish the racers also had a better explanation. Not sure if anything would have changed in the overall outcome but it would have made it a much more even playing field.
AR World Championships 2010 in Spain!
UPDATE: I apologize to Grant that wrote the very informative article explaining the Portugal race format and want to make clear that he does not direct or have anything to do with the event. He was present at the race this year and thought it would be very helpful to all of us to get a good explanation out there. Thanks Grant!
SariAnderson.com 
I’m the author of that Adv World post and, while I’m director of the Untamed New England event in the AR World Series and was present for the last part of the Portugal race, the format I sought to explain is only Portugal’s and I sure don’t claim ownership.
Each ARWS event is run autonomously and the leadership (Geoff Hunt) is very hands-off. The merits of this are debateable, but I want to make it clear that not all ARWS events follow this format — in fact, only the Portugal XPD race uses it.
Thank you for the clarification, Grant. I really appreciate it. I have updated the post with the correct information and thank you very much for such a clear explanation of the race format.