summer series
review
- Tuesday 14 October 2025
With the final race of the 2025 Questars Summer Series behind us, we have been reflecting on what a fun Series it was to organise. Whether you joined us for a race or helped behind the scenes we wanted to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU for making our Series so enjoyable to put on.
The Series took us to three brand-new locations in the Surrey Hills, Peak District and Chilterns and back to two new venues in familiar-ish locations in Dorset and Berkshire. Each location offered a variety of terrain, interesting areas to explore and many a chance to get lost in stunning surroundings!
It was a Series marked by a pretty incredible run of weather – we reckon we only had about twelve minutes of rain throughout the whole Series! We say this with the full knowledge that the winter will now probably be the wettest on record, but hey, bring it!
In total, we had 876 different racers at our events and an impressive eleven hardy souls (WOW – Andrew Ryan, David Salter, Isla Reynolds, Jonathan Ward, Kevin Stephens, Lee Ciancamerla, Liz Jones, Maggie Salter, Nick Gracie, Nina Ingham and Robert Sharman) who completed all five of our events. Kudos to you all!
Our Series
At the start of our Series, we unveiled our new 2025 Hall of Fame for racers who have achieved over 10,000 lifetime points with us and it was great to add a further two names with Pollie Boyle and Phil Pattullo earning their Hall of Fame Numbers during the Summer Series. Many people ask how long it takes to make it onto the Hall of Fame and of course it varies, though some have been able to jump on it with consistent racing in just a couple of years, others make it a lifetime achievement earning every point and memory along the way. However you do it, we hope you enjoy the journey even more than the destination, as that’s what we aim for with each of our events.
We trialled a few new things with varying degrees of success during our Summer Series, including adding an element of danger when collecting awards on haystacks and the use of trains and coaches at our two-day event. The latter didn’t quite exactly go to plan (what does in adventure racing?), as the coaches were late and then one of the trains was cancelled! But we are forever thinking of fun ideas to challenge and test your (and our!) resilience and sanity, so who knows what future events will bring!
Our Series Winners
Our Series ended with four very deserving Series winners who all engrave themselves into Questars history by having their names added to our Series Winners Fingerpost:
- Katherina Pedersen retained her Female category title,
- Gary Davies won the Open category for the first time at the 20th time of asking
- Liz Jones and Maggie Salter won the Female Vets category
- Nick Gracie won the Open Vet category for the second year running
You can read more about our Series results here.
Our Highlights
We are often asked what our favourite thing about putting the events on is and we think it has to be the post-race atmosphere with that brilliant buzz of accomplishment where racers are hanging around, chatting about their individual races – the routes they took, the mistakes they made – and sharing tips and advice for next time all over a bowl of our world (?) famous chilli nachos.
Picking one highlight out of the Series is a near-impossible task but, for us, or at least Kim, the fantastic weather was a huge highlight. Summers in the UK have predictably been pretty erratic, but this summer showed the best of the UK and what happens when the weather is fine and the adventures are plentiful. The atmosphere of our events is something we truly pride ourselves on, so having the extra time and weather to relax and unwind with lots of friendly faces is a highlight we will never tire of.
Behind the Scenes
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the incredible volunteers, marshals and support staff who made each event run so smoothly. Their tireless efforts ensured that every race went off without a hitch, and we are so grateful to have such a brilliant team behind us. Thank you to Abbie, Andy, Ben, Brad, Clive, Darcy, David, Debbie, Denise, Emma, Hilary, Jerry, Jim, Joe, Lorraine, Lucy, Lydia, Mags, Neil, Nick, Paul, Robert, Serhii, Shawn, Tim, Tom B, Tom W!
We are also very grateful to Adam Rose, Daniel Seago, Naiche Kempson, Noah Rose, and Rob Howard who provided such fantastic media coverage of our events. Head over to our website to nab some great photos of yourself from our photo archive.
Looking Ahead
We hope the Questars Summer Series has left you with some great memories and a burning desire for plenty more! For us, our attention now turns to our Winter Series which kicks off in November in the New Forest and we are also well underway with plans for our 2026 Series with four one-day races and one two-day race planned. We are also planning our 25th Anniversary celebrations with a big anniversary event in October, more details to be released soon. Summer Series dates are already out and entries to open shortly, so get your calendars ready and we can’t wait to start filling them with all things Adventure!
Thank you once again for being part of the Questars 2025 Summer Series. The adventure was epic because of YOU!
Kim and Joe
