Our Chilterns race brought to an end our 2025/26 Winter Series, and what a Series it was! We would like to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has come out to race with us and support our events. In total, we had 448 different racers during the Series with an incredible twenty-one completing all four events. With personal commitments and injury or illness, this is no mean feat. Thank you!
When planning the Series, we aim to provide variety in terms of locations and courses and we think we managed to do just that with a different mix of terrain and elevation at each event from the flatlands of the New Forest to the steep hills of the Cotswolds. We always like the New Forest and it was great to explore new parts of the Cotswolds, Chilterns and South Downs.
There was the usual mix of adventure racing competition and camaraderie at all of our events with the Cotswolds probably just shading it as our personal favourite. It’s a venue and an area we really like with lots of route choice and rewarding terrain close to the event base.
As we look back on our Series, we can’t quite believe how lucky we were with the weather – I guess those sun dances we do every morning are finally paying dividends, maybe we’ll stop them for the Summer Series…
We started in the New Forest under glorious sunshine in November, and ended in similar conditions in February in the Chilterns – breaking a 38-day continuous rain spell for the area! You can read the individual race reports for the New Forest, Cotswolds, South Downs and Chilterns on the individual pages.
We tried something new with our ‘special checkpoints’ this winter, with the checkpoints not being marked on the maps and riddles leading racers to their location – thank you to Andrew Ryan for the suggestion for this. It seems like these were enjoyed given the number of you who went out of your way to visit various telephone boxes, trig points, etc despite the checkpoints not being worth any points. We will likely drop these for our Summer Series and reintroduce them next winter, so please let us know what your thoughts are on the ’special checkpoints’.
On the racing side of things, Helen Chapman had an incredible Series taking a clean sweep of three wins from the three races she took part in to wrestle back her Winter Series crown. In the Open category, it was really close with three different winners at the first three races, in the end Campbell Walsh retained his crown with an incredible final race in the Chilterns.
This was the second Winter Series with our updated Vets scoring system and it led to some really competitive racing with only a few points separating the podium at most races. After a really close Series of racing, Pollie Boyle retained her Winter Series title and new Vet entrant Carl Silver took home victory in the Open category.
We had some great performances this Series from relative newcomers as well: Ben Hawkins and June Kingsbury both performed really well throughout in their first full Winter Series with us, taking home our Best Newcomer awards.
We were delighted to welcome a number of new racers into our Hall of Fame with Robert Griffiths joining at our December event in the Cotswolds and Andrew Ryan joining at our last event in the Chilterns. These are racers who have accumulated 10,000 points racing with us over the years. You can read more about our Hall of Fame here.
Female Category
Helen Chapman had a perfect Series with three wins from three, to take the win on 2,069 points. Helen performed really consistently with a standout performance in the New Forest. Jen Hunt had a brilliant Series to finish as runner-up on 1,838 points after four really solid races, particularly on the foot stages where she normally scores highest. Julia Robison took the final spot on the podium with 1,726 points after a great Series, with the Cotswolds being her standout race. Steph Gibbins was really unlucky as she finished in fourth just three points off the podium!
(NB: Pollie Boyle, who finished in third place, dropped off the podium due to her win in the Vets category).
Open Category
Campbell Walsh had an outstanding Series, with two wins and a second and a third-place finish to end on the maximum of 2,396 points. Dan Thorby, finished in second place overall with 2,352 points after a win, two second and one third-place finish. Ben Hawkins rounded out the Series podium on 2,261 points after a really solid series with the South Downs being a particularly good performance where he finished on top of the podium for the first time.
(NB: Carl Silver, who finished in third place, dropped off the podium due to his win in the Vets category).
Female Vets Category
Pollie Boyle had a fantastic Series to retain her title with 1,834 points. Pollie was consistent throughout with wins in the Cotswolds and Chilterns. Maggie Salter and Liz Jones had another brilliant Series to finish in second place overall with an adjusted score of 1,784 points, the South Downs was their standout race where they took home the win. Sarah Russell rounded out the podium with an adjusted score of 1,616 points. Sarah is a terrific racer and had a great Series with the New Forest being her best result.
Open Vets Category
Carl Silver had a brilliant Series winning three out of four races to claim his first Vets Series win. Carl had a brilliant race in the New Forest and backed this up with consistent racing throughout to finish on a Vets adjusted series score of 2,298 points. Phil Haycock finished as runner-up in the Series for the second time with an adjusted 2,102 points after another great Series of racing with the Cotswolds being his stand-out race. Eddie Winthorpe took the final spot on the podium with an adjusted 2,089 points with the New Forest being his best race.
Taster Category
Mandy Hibberd won the overall Taster category with impressive performances throughout, particularly in the New Forest. Mandy dropped down to the Taster events due to recovering from injury and we can’t quite believe how quickly she has got back to an excellent level of racing.
Adventure Racers of the Series
Andy Prince won our Adventure Racer of the Series award, Andy was ever-present at all of our winter races and has helped to find a number of new venues and area for us – including the Avon Tyrrell venue which was host to our New Forest event. Andy also suggested the introduction of our larger size ‘super-vets’ maps last year which we know have been a massive hit with a lot of you. Thank you, Andy!
What’s next?
We have really enjoyed putting on the events and planning is already well underway for another expanded Series of five winter races from November 2026 – February 2027. More on this in the coming months!
Thank you once again and we look forward to seeing you soon,
Kim and Joe
