Quest ARS
Questars Explore More of Exmoor
Pippa MacDougal - Questars / 30.07.2003
The 6th Quest Adventure Race of 2003 was based at Wimbleball Lake on Exmoor which is where the canoe stage took place, and the courses went up towards Croydon Hill and Dunster with the highest scoring checkpoints on Wootton Common. After the 2 day race on Exmoor earlier in the year this was a chance to explore some different parts of the National Park. The weather, especially in the West Country, had been pretty appalling and the heavens opened for the duration of Saturday, but by Sunday morning, the scene was one of a gorgeous summers day, with hardly any wind and lots of sunshine! The lake was beautifully calm too, so there were excellent conditions for all stages of the event.
Once again it was a fairly tough course, being a very hilly area and the wet ground underfoot made it even more difficult than usual. \'Rizzla\', one of our solo men decided to cycle first and managed to find the only track on Exmoor that was obviously covered in drawing pins and nails, as within a mile of the start he had 3 punctures in the same wheel
One team who obviously avoided such traumas, were regulars, CotswoldOutdoor.com, who managed an excellent 405 Questars out of a total of 450 on the mountain bike stage, definitely they\'re strong point. Not far behind were novice team, Team New Zealand, who managed a very respectable 325 Questars for the stage.
The running stage, was the highlight not only for mixed team, Team Weston who scored 355 on a particularly long and tough course, but also for yet another novice team, Centurions, who scored an excellent 230.
The canoeing stage was 6km in total, so many teams did very well to complete all 4 check points, scoring the maximum of 150 Questars on what always seems to be their least favourite discipline. For the first time, teams were threatened with a heavy penalty for coming back in late from the paddling, which certainly scared a number of teams into not pushing for that extra check point, but to come back to the safety of the next stage.
A special mention should go to our very own Questars member of staff, Adrian, who managed to persuade his partner that there was no better way to spend her birthday than running around the Exmoor countryside! Somehow Lou managed to finish in one piece and was still smiling at the end!
The race however, really belonged to the Overall and Mixed winners - Team
Weston who are Gerry King and Teresa Daniel who scored an excellent 565
Questars. The winner of the men\'s category was Nigel Robinson, a local from
Taunton, who seemed slightly shocked at his final result of 485 Questars
whilst the Novice winners were Team New Zealand (Robert Lei, Sarah Roberts, Gareth Hargreaves and Suzanne McKenzie) with a very impressive 410 Questars.
Results:
Overall & Mixed - Team Weston - 565 Questars
Men\'s - Nigel Robinson - 485 Questars
Novices - Team New Zealand - 410 QuestarsSee All Event Posts
