Last Gasp Series Win For The North Face Flight Series
Rob Howard / 27.07.2005
The ACE Race One Day Adventure Series reached a close and dramatic conclusion on Saturday when ‘The North Face Flight Series’ (Mark Ford, Anthony Emmet & Robyn Ferrar) took second place and claimed the Series title from ‘Taking the Pith’ (Eddie Winthorpe, Kate Knight & Graham Baxter.)The teams had finished first and second in the previous two series events. ‘The North Face Flight Series’ won the first race at Ashdown Forest by 90 seconds, but were almost 18 minutes down on ‘Taking the Pith’ in the second race at Bracknell Forest. So coming into the 3rd and last race at Cannock Chase ‘Taking the Pith’ were defending a comfortable 16 and a half minute lead.
However, both teams had members recovering from injuries, and wondering if they would stand up to another fast race. Ferrar was still recovering from a broken hand sustained in a bike crash at the Bristol Rat Race (and ignoring medical advice not to mountain bike), while Winthorpe had suffered a severe ankle twist just the previous weekend in the Edinburgh Rat Race. (Knight was also recovering from tonsillitis but that had nothing to do with Rat Racing!)
In what Phil Humphries described as the most complex navigational one-day course he’s ever set, the teams took some different navigational choices between checkpoints, but were often in sight of each other during the early stages of the race.
Both made some navigational errors, which cost them precious minutes, and during the later part of the race ‘The North Face Flight Series’ pulled away, finishing strongly in second place in a time of 3.27.46. Then came a nervous wait to see how long it would be before their rivals crossed the line. They arrived 17 minutes and 17 seconds later, taking 4th place in the race, but losing out on the series title to ‘The North Face Flight Series’ by an agonising 59 seconds.
The full race and series results are on the ACE Races website.
(The race winners were ‘The South Face’ – Tom Gibbs/Cas Van-aardenne/Astrid Wheatcroft – in a time of 3.24.28.)
