ARC Adventure Race
World Class Racing In Coromandel
Stan van Jaarsveld / 24.03.2008
The ARC Adventure Race threw up a typically challenging and entertaining event last weekend for the country’s top adventure racing exponents. But it also saw a change in champions as Auckland’s world-ranked Team Orion failed to clinch their fourth straight title.The ARC Adventure Race returned to its own neck of the woods in 2008, staging a fresh new format for their traditionally challenging 24-hour event. ARC organisers Keith Stephenson and Andy Reid have a reputation as the most innovative endurance sports organisers in the country, but this year they outdid even themselves with an exciting course based around Tuck’s Bay in the remote northern reaches of the Coromandel Peninsula.
Forty four teams from around New Zealand, Australia and even Nicaragua lined up. Favourites were Auckland-based Team Orion of Wayne Oxenham, Stu Lynch, Brent Edwards and Anna Berthelsen, who finished third in last year’s adventure racing world championship and have won the previous three ARC events.
As true to form, as teams got away on Saturday with a kayak section on Hauraki Gulf, Orion’s superb navigation saw them start the following mountain bike leg with a 20min lead over the Hawke's Bay/Gisborne-based Team Powered By Velvet.org.nz.
The Powered By Velvet, foursome of Rhys Burns, George Christison, Chris Morrisey and Sonya Clark were the dark horses for this year’s ARC event. On paper they were probably a stronger team than Orion, but the defending champions have far more experience as a team.See All Event Posts
