Questars Adventure Race - New Forest
Questars Winter Series starts in the New Forest
Race Director's Report / 16.11.2025
We kicked off our Winter Series in style from Avon Tyrrell (a calendar house!) on the edge of the New Forest and what a terrific day of adventure racing it was - cool early morning temperatures quickly made way for sunshine, blue skies and shorts and t-shirt weather!
We had a great mix of adventure racing newbies, regulars and Hall of Famers and everyone seemed to really enjoy the area. It was one of our flattest events leading to slightly longer courses than normal and the gravel tracks used on the bike section generally proved easier to navigate than normal.
As is often the case, the majority started on foot with 75% of competitors donning their trail shoes first. Out on course, at around 25km, the run course was a biggie. Despite this, four teams managed to clear it with Daniel Thorby fastest in a brilliant time of 2:10, followed by Tom Davies (2:11), Campbell Walsh (2:15) and The Dirty Cheetahs (Yasmina Khadhraoui and Rory Henson – 2:40).
In the Taster Category Team Stok Kangri (Danielle Cook and Gemma Cathcart) picked up the most points on the run collecting 190 points in 2:03 followed by Miranda Naish (185 points in 2:05) and Team Margarita (Richard Jeffrey & Cara Smith - 170 points in 1:40).
Having cleared the course, it was no surprise that Dan Thorby had the most profitable run, picking up 2.68 points per minute, followed by Tom Davies (2.67) and Campbell Walsh (2.59). In the Female category, Helen Chapman had the most profitable run picking up 2.15 points per minute, followed by Issy Boyd (2.04) and In Search of Control (Pollie Boyle and Tamara Curnow – 1.89).
At over 56km the bike route was another big one, despite this an impressive twelve teams managed to clear it with Simon Jennison fastest in 2:35 followed by Andy Prince (2:45) and David Carr (2:53). Bonnie Van Wilgenburg (3:12) and Julie Banton (3:45) were the only competitors in the Female category to do so with Nicky Griffin (2:58) the only competitor in the Taster category to complete.
Jon Heissig (2:55), Eddie Winthorpe (2:58), Robert Sharman (3:01),Phil Haycock (3:16), Andy Wayland (3:23) and Eugene Xxxx (3:46) were the others to all complete it. Carl Silver had the most profitable bike leg picking up 2.93 points per minute, followed by Simon Jennison (2.89) and Andy Prince (2.72).
In the female category, Helen Chapman had the most profitable bike picking up 2.68 points per minute, followed by Ella Pyman (2.40) and Bonnie Van Wilgenburg (2.34). In the Taster category, father and son team Young & Old (Mark & Harvey Humphrey) had the most profitable bike picking up 2.66 points per minute.
The bike leg proved to be the most profitable with teams picking up an average of 2.01 points per minute compared to 1.75 points per minute on the run.
We felt it was a clearable course and so it would have been had it not been for an incredible amount of punctures picked up on the bike leg! We heard stories of Tom Davies having to detour to buy extra tubes, Nick Gracie having to return to the event base to swap wheels (which also failed!) and Dan Thorby, Campbell Walsh and Bonnie van Wilgenburg amongst others all returning with tales of flat-tyre woe.
A mix of lovely weather and bike woes meant that penalties far outweighed rewards on the day and there were some brilliant penalty performances with Dan Whittaker picking up an impressive 195 points, Nick Gracie picking up 115 and Steve Trickey picking up 56 by being back 28 minutes late on the two-hour run.
As ever, we had brilliant stories of teams racing in the proper adventure racing spirit with the likes of Emily Hartley lending out her pump to allow another team to complete their race – thank you Emily!
We also had some incredible shows of dedication with Mike Stevenson waking up at 2am to make the start from Wigan and Nick Gracie starting at 5am so he could get back in time to watch his son’s rugby match (also to Katherina for waking up to drop him to the start!). Incredible effort guys!
Dan Thorby took the overall win in the open category with Helen Chapman returning to the top of the podium in the female category. They are both previous Series winners and now have nice targets on their backs for the rest of the Series!
Our Winter Series saw the return of our special checkpoints which we reintroduced with riddles to solve to find them (thank you to Andrew Ryan here for the suggestion). The checkpoints carried no point value but entered finders into a spot-prize draw. By either luck or judgement, around a quarter of teams managed to find one of the special checkpoints with Sarah Preston being the lucky winner of an entry into a future event.
Thank you to everyone who came out to take part and support at our event and helped to make it a great start to the Series. A special thank you to regular racer Andy Prince who recommended the venue and area to us, he has already recommended another one so, who knows, we could be back soon!
For us, our attention now turns to our next Winter Series event which takes place from Bishop’s Cleeve in the Cotswolds on 6 December – expect a few more hills next time around!
Full results can be found here and pictures here (where you can search using a selfie and download high-res images for free).
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