UK National AR Award Winners

Various / 24.01.2011

At the recent annual adventure racers gathering in the Lake District the winners of the UKAR annual awards were announced following an online poll. The winners were as follows with comments from various unnamed sources!

<b>The UKAR Adventure Racers Award – Team adidas Terrex</b>

This team have once again put a consistently strong set of results together in 2010. This included the usual suspects plus Steve Birkinshaw, taking line honours at the Adidas Terrex race for their sponsors. They followed this up with a defence of their World Champions crown over in Spain, but were unable to match the super speedy locals Buff Thermacool in their own backyard. Then a mixed UK and NZ group headed out to Dubai to bring it home in true ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ style. Racing through the heat of the desert they were only 11 minutes behind the outright winners, earning themselves a cash rich 4th place. The other nominations included Team planetFear, Nicola McCleod and Patrick Meldrum.

<b>The SLEEPMONSTERS Inspiration Award - Joe Faulkner</b>

Joe has been pushing the element of Adventure in the purest form to get folk out into the hills. He races for Nav4, and offers training to would be adventure racers to keep them safe while undertaking the rough and tumble of our rugged hills. He keeps pushing the challenges and you will find Joe behind the Heb B2B, Tour De Helvelyn and the Bampton Bash including the Tour de Kentmere. So with Joe bringing a flavour of alpine tours and pure AR, he is a clear and deserved winner of the Inspiration award. The other multiple nominations included James Thurlow, Ant Emmet, Bruce Duncan.

<b>THE NORTH FACE Endurance Award - Team Helly Hansen Prunesco. (Mark Humphrey, Andy Wilson, Nicola MacLeod, Bruce Duncan)</b>

This team showed an extraordinary level of Endurance when taking on the last frontier in Patagonia. A race where satellite trackers don't work and a rescue is potentially 3 or more days away, if you are lucky enough to be rescued. The maps are a few pictures from space, and the last person to visit the area was ummm ... no one! They battled through pretty wild conditions and terrain to win a race by over a day from their nearest rivals. This was an endurance feat in the purest form and the team are worthy winners of the award.