Indoor Adventure wows the crowds

18.03.2002

The UK’s, and perhaps the world’s first competitive indoor adventure race was a huge success at the Outdoors Show.

The National Exhibition Centre at Birmingham was overwhelmed by the number of visitors trying to get in, and many of the 30,000 who did took time out to watch the indoor AR action.

Phil Humphreys and his ACE Races team met the challenge of designing a full on, competitive and spectator friendly race in a space of only 25x33m. This small arena featured canoe, ride and climb simulators, a climbing wall and zip wire, a bike circuit with ramp and rumble strip, an area where teams had to assemble and pack down North Face tents and a rope swing traverse.

Phil did cheat a little by having a running circuit with scramble net outside, but made no compromise on the quality of the field or the difficulty of the race. Nearly all the best known U.K. racers were there in teams of 3 for three hour long heats on Friday and Saturday, with 6 going through to Sunday’s 4 and a half hour long final. (Six teams were on this tiny circuit at the same time.) All of them found it incredibly tough – this was no demonstration event, it was one of most competitive AR races ever seen in the U.K.

Hundreds of spectators cheered the teams on and the atmosphere at the end of the final was electric with Team Genetic Potential (Marc Laithwaite, Fiona Lothian and Dan Corner) competing head to head and flat out with leaders Parrot/Lythgoe (Nicky and Jim Davies and Ben Bardsley). They were trying to lap them to make up a narrow points deficit but despite a fantastic effort fell just short.

We’ll bring you a full report very, very shortly – watch this space.

There are more details on the ACE Races web site here.