Our Chariots on Fire event ran from Friday 22 June to Sunday 24 June 2012 and raised over £36,000 for Barnardo's. Starting in Market Harborough and finishing near Milton Keynes you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a short slow drive - it wasn't, we covered a lot of miles inbetween!
The excitement of the three day Chariots on Fire event started on Thursday evening 21 June when teams checked-in and made final preparations, and concluded on the Sunday evening with an ‘Olympic closing ceremony’ where we all enjoyed dinner, medal presentations and a final night of fun together!
This year’s participants looped across the rolling hills and secluded valleys of the East Midlands and surrounding area, the clay vales and open plateaus, the chalk ridges, deep combes, river valleys and marsh lands – truly outstanding!
We stopped off and stayed overnight in some of the finest examples of traditional market towns and historic cities, each with unique characters shaped by hundreds of years of heritage, industry and local customs. Despite the rain we still enjoyed Rutland Water, Lincoln, Grafham Water and Bletchley Park.
But let’s not forget that this was a driving tour, with an Olympic theme! Each team, represented their chosen country, chasing dreams of glory in an array of Olympic themed challenges throughout the event. Some of these challenges were so awesome and took place in such inspiring venues, they had teams sacrificing everything for Gold!
We also had a fantastic afternoon at Manby Motorplex with some challenging driving that included skid car, rally driving, artic HGV lorry, double decker bus and 4x4 offroad action! With a sunny afternoon, great burger van, and so much adrenaline we had an amazing time!
We would like to thank all the teams, their supporters, our sponsors and all the venues that helped to make this event such a success and enabled us to raise so much money to support the work of Barnardo's.