The first race of the 2024 Questars Summer Series took place from Duncton Village Hall in the South Downs. Beautiful blue skies greeted racers as they arrived, the perfect start to summer!

The forecast was mixed and the ‘light showers’ forecast for the afternoon turned into a thirty-minute hail storm providing some challenging conditions to test even the toughest of racers (and a couple of croquet players enjoying a game by the village hall). Fortunately, the hail didn’t last long and the blue skies quickly returned in time for everyone’s return to base where a last short, sharp hill up to the finish line allowed for the emptying of any remaining energy in participants’ legs.

Once again, the course was a really challenging one, with lots of hills and recent strong winds turning some of the trails into a natural obstacle course. There were lots of route options and teams quickly dispersed into the South Downs in search of the perfect formula for checkpoint collection, no two racers took the same route which led to some interesting discussion back at base in terms of the perfect strategy.

Out on course, there was a relatively even split of points between running and biking with racers picking up an average of 1.44 points per minute on the run and 1.39 points per minute on the bike (this was skewed slightly as any transition time to and from the kayak reduced the points per minute on the bike. In other words, it was probably a perfect split between run and bike with the course planner once again putting on the perfect course…). Those that kayaked really made hay in the sunshine (or hail) by picking up an average of 3.1 points per minute with De Wet Kruger picking up an incredible 5.5 points per minute for two kayak checkpoints.  

Two racers/teams collected all kayak checkpoints with Campbell Walsh fastest in a time of 51:15 ahead of Team Burridge (Rob Burridge and Katie Horsfield) in 55:08.

Tom Davies (in 2:59:28) was the only person to complete the bike course whilst Campbell Walsh picked up 2.68 points per minute ahead of Tom Davies and Carl Silver (both on 2.62 points per minute).

Team Bounce (David Lain & Iain Morris) came closest to completing the run picking up 330 points out of a possible 360 in 2:52:04 whilst Campbell Walsh showed there really is no weakness to his game by picking up 2.2 points a minute ahead of Hannah Cooke with 2.16 points per minute and The Lost Boys (Adam Brown and Ezra Knott) with 2.15 points per minute.

There were some incredible stories out on course with Team Racelaine (Rachael Lewis and Elaine Reeves) running rings around themselves to finish the two-hour run-only course in 3:50:22 and injury causing Team 4D (Mark Lyle, Ricardo Pereira) to finish in 7:27:54 on their five-hour course.

Full results can be found here, pictures here and Sleepmonsters race report here. Thanks to everyone who came out to join us for the start of the series, we can’t wait to do it all again in a few weeks!

A summary of the results follow:

Run-only (2 hours)

In the run-only category, Jeremy Wormington topped the podium with 239 points ahead of Run Forest Run! (Jay Allen & Joanna Copestake) with 212 points. Simon Ward (194) took the final podium spot just edging out Team Lost & Found (David Roberts, Paul Roberts, Michael Roberts, Richard Roberts) with 186.

Duo (Run & Bike 5 hours)

In the Duo category, Team Rich and Oscar (Richard Bennett & Oscar Sly) won the day with 508 points whilst Team Matthews (Nicola & David Matthews) just edged Team Stand Sure (Ian Anderson & Jon Akers) with both finishing on 300 points with Team Matthews in second due to a faster finishing time.

Trio Novice (Run, Bike & Kayak 5 hours)

In the Open Teams category, The Commuters (Tom Saggers & Chris West) proved that commuting can be an effective way to train by winning the category with 536 points ahead of Fusion Adventure Racing (Graeme & Aidan Williams) on 488 and Team Old & Grumpy (Owen Herbert, Richard Hedgecox, Iain Ollerenshaw) on 458.

In the Mixed Team category Team Frisky Whiskers (Sarah & John Russell) had an impressive first outing with us by winning the category with 459 points ahead of Double Trouble (Victoria and Ben Smith) with 410 and FitFourFun (Hayley Sengebusch, Kim Sparks, Mark Jerling) with 262.

In the Open Solo category, Ed Hopewell topped the podium with 490 points ahead of Graeme Blair on 469 points and Ashley Davis on 461 – a tight race!

In the female category, Team Golden Stars (Marion Guimard, Katy Relph) edged out Fiona Turmeau with 315 points to 279.

Trio Masters (Run, Bike & Kayak 6 hours)

In the Open Teams category, Fuzion Adventure Racing Team (Phil Haycock, Lee Booth) won a tight race with 768 points ahead of Team Truffle Hunters (Rob Smart, Damon de Boor) on 753 points and Need for speed (Andrew & Alex Cawthorne on 652 points.

In the Mixed Team category Team Mongaru (Katherina Pederson & Nick Gracie) carried over their excellent form from the Winter Series to win with 771 points from Team Burridge (Rob Burridge, Katie Horsfield)  on 689 and Team Mile Hunters (Jennifer Hunt, Nick Mileham) on 636.

In the Female Team category, it was another incredibly close battle with only 20 points separating the top two. Team 7Oaks Tri Jestars (Ella Pyman, Catherine Linney) came out on top with 537 points ahead of Escaping the kids (Charlotte Duncan, Belinda Robbie, Rebecca Galea) with 518 and Team Waspy’s Wonders (Isla Reynold and Nin Ingham) with 468.

In the Female Solo category, Hannah Cooke had an excellent race to finish in first place on 760 points ahead of Helen Chapman on 735 with Julia Kingsbury, in her fist full outing with us, making up the podium with a brilliant 637 points.

In the Open Solo category, our reigning Winter Champion, Campbell Walsh put in an imperious performance to put a marker down for the Series and win with a score of 914 points from Tom Davies on 891 points and Carl Silver on 848 points.

Trio Masters Vets

Our South Downs race was the first to test out our new Vets scoring system and it led to a close podium which sets the Vets Series up nicely. In the Open Category, Phil Haycock won the day with an adjusted score of 814 points ahead of Nick Gracie on 806 points and Rob Burridge on 792 points whilst in the female category, Julie Banton led the way with 604 points ahead of Ella Pyman and Catherine Linney with 601 points with Liz Jones and Maggie Salter making up the podium with 551 points.

All in all, a brilliant day of racing and a great start to our Summer Series!