Ford Ranger Adventure Series
Scorching Swinley
Rob / 21.08.2002
Summer races should always be like this – the race HQ tent set on a field of flowering heather, bright sunshine – and a Ford Ranger 4x4 as a prize!
The third and final Ford Adventure Race of the year, held in Swinley Forest near Bracknell, had a full field of 85 teams, ready to take on whatever mystery challenges Phil Humphreys had devised for them on his 5 hour course. Once again there were plenty of newcomers to AR, some of them there after finding SleepMonsters.com, like Lucy Poole, who had joined ‘Hastings Runner’s - Carpe Diem’ through our forum. Ian Shoobridge and his team, ‘The 3 Amigos’, had entered after he met other racers at trials for the TV show ‘Tough Enough for the SAS’ and all 3 of the amigos were having a go for the first time too.
As ever some of the team names were mysterious and downright peculiar – ‘The Trevor Brooking Fan Club’ and ‘The Devil’s Hole Gang’ were there, along with ‘Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show’! There were lots of teams with monkeys and gorillas in their names too …... The Spiders were there in force as well, with Southern Spiders turning out an impressive 7 teams and having club members in several others as well. Garry Moss was in one of them. He’d won a place through Runner’s World magazine in the previous race when they were looking for runners to try something new, and had so enjoyed his first taste of AR he was back for more.
One of the Spider’s teams ‘Huntsman’, were still in with a chance of winning the series prize of the Ford Ranger 4x4 for a year, but it was an outside chance only. The series would be decided on aggregate time and ‘Wadenhoe High Five’ were so far ahead after the first 2 races only a major disaster on their part would let anyone else in. Surprisingly only 5 teams had kept the same line up throughout the 3 races and were ranked in the series.
As Phil gave his pre-race briefing a few sensible competitors stayed under the bushes nearby, keeping in the shade while they could, and the good news was the course was designed to bring everyone back to the transition point very regularly, where they could get High Five drinks and water. Keeping well hydrated wasn’t going to be easy even so. As usual Phil have little away, the course would only be revealed after a 3 km run to the ‘give out’ point, but he did stress that though it was dry now there had been a lot of rain lately, making the tracks loose and rutted with erosion gullies. Then he added, “There is a little more water at some challenges than I anticipated!� A nervous laugh went round, but racers should know by now he’s usually serious – and he was!
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