ARC Adventure Race At Mt Maunganui

Michael Jaques / 31.03.2006

Almost 200 endurance junkies from all ends of New Zealand will line up in Mt Maunganui tomorrow for the annual ARC Adventure Race. Organised by Adventure Racing Coromandel, this is the first time their flagship race has moved outside the peninsula and race directors Andy Reid and Keith Stephenson have dubbed the event, “Escape From Coromandel”.

As well as the usual disciplines the ARC event will also include sections of swimming and abseiling. Competitors can chose either a 24-hour or 12-hour race, with the 24-hour also doubling as a round of the Sportzhub.com New Zealand Adventure Racing Series.

While the course is top secret until the night before the race, the favourites are obvious for everyone to see. Defending champions, Team Orien Health (formerly Subaru), have two teams in this year’s ARC event. Their top team of Wayne Oxenham, Stuart Lynch, Anna Berthelsen and Gordon Walker will be backed up with another competitive foursome of Wayne Hodgetts, Alysha Blackwell and Ross Rotherham. But they face one of the most experienced adventure racing units in New Zealand.

Adventure racing veterans Jeff Mitchell and Neil Jones have assembled a strong team for the ARC event. The former world championship runners-up have raced with American sponsorship in the past few years. But at ARC they will trial a new all-Kiwi contingent called Team Bivouac/Outdoor Research that includes themselves, Christchurch’s Luke Vaughn and Christchurch-based Swede Sia Svendsen.