Back in May a team of Vortex instructors and Zapcat competitors headed to Skye in Scotland to be part of the Drambuie Pursuit ’09. The Drambuie Pursuit is an adventure race through the Scottish Highlands celebrating the gallant flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie, for whom the secret recipe for Drambuie was created in 1745. Participants climb, bike, canoe and archer their way through the 100-mile one-day event, paddling across the River Ness and tracing the steps of the prince when he was defeated at the Battle of Culloden.
Each year, teams of four adults are flown to Scotland from around the world to race across the Scottish Highlands. The second stage of the pursuit sees “The Clans” in Loch Alsh to experience the thrill of Zapcat Racing. Each Vortex instructor and Zapcat competitor were adopted into a clan to assist the teams in their pursuit of glory.
The chicaned course would see the teams take to the water in a relay race in which each of them would co-pilot the Zapcat for 4 laps of the course before leaping out of the Zapcat running up the beach and tagging their next team member. After all 4 members have completed the Zapcat course one member of the team then has a gruelling run to endure to collect a wooden box containing a bottle of Drambuie that must then be brought back to the Zapcats and taken across the Loch to the next stage.
Saturday saw 10 teams from the UK competing in the competition including English Rugby legend Lawrence Dallagio who was piloted by Vortex Racing’s (now Blue Sheets) Craig Davis in the Clan “Team Lawrence”. Whilst Go Commando’s Captain Richie Lake put Scotland rugby player Kenny Logan through his paces in the Daily Record Team.
Conditions were Wet and Windy as the starts flags dropped for the 20 lap race. Team Lawrence took the fastest lap of the day in 1 minute 11 secs with a top speed of 42.96mph and came in third overall on the final finish line in 33:11:09. The Daily record Team finished 1 minute and 21 seconds behind them in 7th Position. Winners of the stage were 2008 Drambuie Pursuit Overall winners Hallambuie with Zapcat Pilot Daren Ford of Team Speedy Hire completing the Stage in 32minutes 54seconds, who then continued to dominate the other challenges to take the overall title for the second consecutive year.
Sundays race saw 13 International teams step up to the challenge and amongst the teams was Hollywood Actor Seann William Scott leading his team in the challenge. The Dukes of Hazard star was paired with Speedy Hire’s Daren Ford as his Clan battled to win the stage. They took the day’s fastest lap in perfect flat water conditions clocking a time of 1minute 03 seconds and a speed of 45.31mph. Team Seann finished the stage in third position in 30:13:91. Just 1 hundredth of a second split the Men’s Journal team and German Clan Drambuie Warriors in 6th and 7th position with the glorious sunny conditions providing a very close contest. Winners of the Zapcat stage were the Dutch Drambuie Clan sprinting to the finish line in 29minutes and 31seconds and driven to glory by Team Relentless’ Andy Foster.
The Drambuie Warriors Reigned victorious overall in Sundays competition and were crowned 2009 kings of the Drambuie Pursuit. The Vortex team made the most of the afternoons good weather to take the Zapcats to visit the local seal colony and explore the beautiful surroundings before heading to Inverness to cheer on their teams as they crossed the final finish line, and partake in a few Drambuies and an evening of dancing to the Red Hot Chilli Pipers.
Tonight at 20:00hrs GMT ITV4 will be airing the Footage from The Drambuie 2009 tune in to see all the action and find out how the teams got on.