The JOK Chasing Sprint at Bloom Wood near High Wycombe provided an exciting warm-up before the Harvester Relays later that night. Tim Britton finished 12th in the Open class, with Clive Hallett and Mark Bown in 21st and 23rd places respectively. Clive put in an excellent performance in the chase, finishing 7th on that run but just failing to keep up with the pack of 12 youngsters bunched within 30 seconds just ahead; the single SI box at the last control didn’t help the less aggressive. Mark Bown on the other hand gained several places by not following the group ahead, who all turned up embarrassingly close to the finish before having to go back to the last control. Alice Bedwell finished 13th in the Women’s Open, Jackie Hallett 2nd in the Women’s Vets and Charles Daniel 17th in the Men’s Vets.
There were 3 BOK teams in the Harvester, despite having to find several last-minute substitutes due to injury and illness. The BOK Shooting Stars (Clive Hallett, Keith Agmen, Ifor Powell, Mark Saunders, Mark Bown, Mark Selley and Tim Britton) finished 5th overall in the A class, with Clive getting the team off to a flying start on the 1st night leg and Mark Bown also winning the 5th leg. The BOK Nightingales (Jackie Hallett, Alice Bedwell, Charlotte Daniel, Jo Foster and Christine Farr) finished 15th overall in the B class, 5th Women-Only team and 4th in the Women’s Handicap. Perhaps the best that can be said of the BOK Moonlighters (Christophe Mutricy, Mark Blackstone, Charles Daniel, Alan Honey, Duncan Innes and Chris Kelsey) is that they finished, not quite last but several hours behind the Shooting Stars! An enjoyable if tiring weekend. Full results for both events accessible from here.
