Home | Entry Form | Regulations | Updates | Sponsors | Race Coverage | Contact Us | sportzHUB The 1020 Challenge provided a challenge for all Eighteen teams lined up for Auckland's newest Adventure race the 1020 challenge. The race took place amongst the spectacular scenery of South Head, the Kaipara Harbour, and the Riverhead and Woodhill forests, providing teams with a chance to experience some of this area's most stunning locations. Teams were thrown in the deep end at 8.00am on Saturday morning when race organizers released details of a race crammed full of map changes, navigational challenges and mystery activities. Teams were given three hours to work their way through a seemingly endless list of checkpoints, which they had to mark on their maps using grid coordinates, and a maze of map corrections. Brain fatigue set in quickly for some. The race began for all competitors at midday and the 10 hour and 20 hour teams battled through the first three stages of the race together. Stage one was a two and a half hour foot rogaine, which gave the orienteers in the field an advantage over their adventure racing counterparts. Team Darryl (20hour) of Darryl Taylor and Brent Edwards collected maximum points to take out a 5 minute advantage over Team Subaru (20 hour) of Wayne Oxenham, Stu Lynch, Alexandra Stewart and Wayne Hodgetts, who had a further 10 minutes over Team Hunting Drop Bears (10hour) of Malcolm Gawn and Jeff Greenwood. Team Vision Security (10 hour) of Darren Gosse, Jo Gosse, Pete Swanson and Tim Cochrane were another ten minutes behind them. Stage two, a MTB through the forestry to Shelly Beach, saw Team Vision Security creep ahead of the field in a time of 2:58:00 with Team Never Sade Di of Di Michels and Sadie Parker-Wynyard hot on their heels with a time of 3:00:00. Team Endura Maxx of Clive Barriball and Robyn McNaught, were right behind them with a time of 3:01:00. This stage also proved to be the undoing of a few teams who were forced to retire at this point. The Mystery activity on this leg, paddling tubes around a buoy, was a hit in the scorching midday temperatures. As Malcolm Gawn wrote "I didn't want to leave". Much to everyone's surprise Team Sun Latte GOT the three girl and one guy combo of Ally Davey, Amanda Peake, Marquita Gelderman and Gordon Blythen were first to the mystery activity with some very smooth navigation. Stage three, a 20 km kayak leg from Shelly beach to Parakai saw Team Subaru show its class with a flawless paddle leg in just over 2:00:00. Team Darryl was just behind in 2:09:00. The earlier teams were treated to a spectacular West Coast sunset but many of the slower teams struggled with this leg as they found themselves in the pitch black trying to navigate through the mangroves, as well as battling against a 5 knot tide. At Parakai, the two challenges split with the 10 hour teams heading to Woodhill forest for Mystery Activity 2, a high ropes course, and the 20 hour teams heading to Riverhead for their second Mystery Activity, shooting. In the 10 hour challenge Team Vision Security showed the way on the MTB leg to the high ropes course but only managed a slight lead ahead of the predominantly female teams of Never Sade Di, Team Sunlatte GOT, who had switched to the 10 hour course, and Team McLeod of Janet McLeod, Graeme McLeod, Margaret Stanley-Harris and Mike Hindmarsh. The final trek for the 10 hour teams through Woodhill forest in the dark really challenged the navigation of most teams with an off track bush bashing section. Once again the strong navigators shone though with Team Hunting Drop bears completing the trek in 2:50:00 (after a macadamia load up at one of the checkpoints) Sun Latte GOT in 2:52:00 and Vision Security dropping the pace a little to finish in 3:00:00. The overall adjusted time placing for the 10 hour challenge were Team Vision Security in 1st place in a time of 11:06:00, Endura Maxx in 2nd place in a time of 12:48:00, Sun Latte GOT in 3rd with a time of 13:47:00 (from the 20 hour challenge) and Never Sadie Di in 4th with a time of 14:19:00. What an epic effort guys!!! In the 20 hour race the battle for first place was tight. Team Darryl were the fastest to Riverhead in a time of 1:28:00 with Team Peak of Steven MacLeod and Simon Grimmer pulling out a superb effort and completing this section in 1:40:00. These teams were further tortured on the bike as they had a one-hour bike rogaine in Riverhead followed by a meaty 30 km ride to Goldie Bush. Team Darryl made a bit of a navigational error on the way, which gave Team Subaru Adventure about a 25 minute lead at the start of the track. The trek leg in Goldie bush provided a route choice for teams. Team Subaru Adventure and Team Darryl opted to stay in the river, diving into pools for bonus points as they made their way up to the waterfall and back, whereas Ferg's Trail Junkies opted to stay on the track and miss the bonus plunges, choosing instead to stop for a power nap on the way. The next leg saw teams climb on to their bikes again and head down to Muriwai Beach, via an early morning viewing of the gannets. With the teams having taken a total time of 16 hours to reach TA4 at Muriwai the race organisers made a decision to shorten the course for teams once they completed the mystery activity. This turned out to be a good decision as the fastest team on this leg, Subaru Adventure, took a grueling 5:08:00, with Team Darryl taking 5:20:00. Ferg's Trail Junkies opted to miss the ropes course knocking off the trek in 5:11:34 but copping a 2:00:00 time penalty. Once at Rimmers Road teams simply had to roll downhill go across to Fordyce Road and then on to Parakai to begin the paddle home to the finish at Shelly Beach. The threat of a cut off looming must have kicked Team Peak into action as they came in with the fastest time on this leg in 0:23:27 followed closely by Team Darryl in 23:52:27. Seven teams started the 20 hour race, four teams crossed the finish line with adjusted time honors going to Team Subaru Adventure. The overall adjusted times for the 20 hour were: 1st place Team Subaru Adventure 19:30:46, 2nd Team Darryl 19:57:14, 3rd Ferg's Trail Junkies 26:55:00 and 4th Team Peak (minus the navigator) 28:56:00. Congratulations to all the teams who participated. It was a gutsy effort.       Site crafted by: