ACE Races 1-Day Team Adventure Series - Cannock Chase
Chasing the Title at Cannock
Robyn Ferrar / 28.07.2005
The hours before the start of the last 1-day Ace race of the season were tense and nerve wrecking ones … probably more so for us (Team The North Face Flight Series) than for most. We were going for a win, both in the race and in the series, but we had a massive job to do and the odds seemed to be stacked against us. Just for starters I (Robyn) was still recovering from a broken hand and was pushing my luck considering I was still banned from my mountain bike for another 2 weeks and had yet to test drive it off-road. Even with an adapted splint for protection, it was still an unknown factor. Then there was The South Face - a late entry team of UK racers back from the 570km “Bull of Africa� race. Tom Gibbs, Astrid Wheatcroft of The North Face Team and Cas Van-aardenne of Due South (hence the team name) were clear favorites.
There were also at least 3 other new runners in the series, all of which were strong contenders for the podium – KIMM LITE/Highfive and the Compass Point teams currently making appearances on the AR circuit of late (as well as the SleepMonsters forum). So, with a win on the day looking tough to impossible, we decided to downgrade our aspirations to a podium finish.
As for the series where the real race was to be had, this was a long shot too as we had a 17-minute deficit to make up on the leading team Taking the Pith. We had only just managed to beat them by 90 seconds in the first race but they managed to create a massive gap of 16½ minutes in the 2nd race. Our only hope was a bit of luck and the ankle injury sustained by Eddie Winthorpe in the Rat Race the previous weekend, but in AR anything can happen. All-in-all we knew we had our work cut out for us.
Behind the Ox
In the race briefing, Phil inspired confidence by mentioning that the navigation in this race was probably the toughest of all 1-day Ace races yet. We knew we had a strong navigator in Anthony so, in theory, this would not disadvantage us as much as most. He also made reference to all the answers the racers would need for one of the challenges, but no one was aware of his cunning clues and some may have wished they had listened more carefully.See All Event Posts
