Ultimax Stingers, Millie and the Hoot-Hers fire up

AROC Adventure, Narrabeen - 29 October 2006

….and AROC photographer Mark Watson and team mates Rosie King and Derek Morrison (Team Lost) win the bottle of Napisan for most blackened and charcoaled team!!

At the end of the day there were a mass of white teeth shining through the big smiles of very black faces. The recent fires through the Narrabeen bush at the back of the Sydney Academy of Sport made for a unique course and opened up the previously unusable area to some fantastic orienteering and MTB tracks.

With the field of over 90 teams split for the start – males teams ready for a short swim to the kayaks and female and mixed teams with tyre tubes in hand – it was all systems go. At the gun the tubers madly tried to roll inflated car/4WD tyre tubes across the oval to pick up the location of a grid reference for a checkpoint later in the race, a short run with the tube and then rolling tubes back across the oval and into the water. The kayakers meanwhile swam across the channel to the kayaks and proceeded to the first checkpoints of the event. It was then a swap for everyone from tubing to kayaking or kayaking to tubing and back to the main transition and on to the bikes. Rob Preston took his team, the Ultimax Stingers ( Rob Preston, Peter Preston, Richard Mountstephens) to an early lead heading off on the bike leg 2 minutes ahead of North Gong Punkz. In only their second adventure race the North Gong Punkz (Dan McNamara, Ben Allen, Julian Fitzpatrick) are looking good.

It was quickly off the bike and into the ashes and the orienteering leg. The Ultimax Stingers pulled an extraordinary time for this completing it in 20 minutes. The all girls teams, the Hoot-Hers (Alison Curtin, Annalisa McKay, Tsalina Phang) and Adrenalin Adventure (Amanda Gross, Danielle Winslow, Heather Logie) produced the second and third fastest times respectively for this leg – go the girls!!

Somewhat more blackened, teams jumped back on their bikes to discover some newly built single track and for some an experience in bike carrying. Team Millie (Warren Burgess, Zoe King and Ian Stewart) came into their own with an exceptionally fast time of 44 minutes, 5 minutes faster than the North Gong Punkz and 11 minutes faster than the Ultimax Stingers putting Team Millie comfortably into second place.

Back to the main transition and a chance to clean up with a splash back across the channel to the kayaks. It was a short paddle on Narrabeen Lake before a final orienteer around the Sydney Academy of Sport. Ultimax Stingers had a perfect race and blitz the field finishing the course in 2hours 55 minutes.

It was great to see Team Millie back in adventure racing and hitting it in style convincingly winning the mixed category and 2nd overall. The Hoot-Hers took out 1st in the female category and an impressive 9th overall.

Male: 1st – Ultimax Stingers (2:55:11); 2nd –North Gong Punkz (3:08:47)
3rd - Crank (3:18:46)
Mixed: 1st – Millie (3:06:32), 2nd- City Bike Depot (3:23:23); 3rd – Stinging Arrows (3:26:41)
Female: 1st – Hoot-Hers (3:36:25); 2nd - Adrenalin Adventure (3:47:04); 3rd - Betty’s Angels (5:47:35)

For full results - click here

For photos - click here

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